alternative to winrar?

[bruceb]

Benefits of selecting Winrar:

* Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs.

* WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.

* WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.

* When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it's all included.

* WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special "Wizard" mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use.

* WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits.

* WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

* WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives.

* Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives.

* WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack.

 

[an_89]

I'm sorry bruceb, I like and respect WinRar but the post seems a plain advertising

* Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs.

WinRar is no longer the leader of the crowd in terms of compression, the leader today is PAQ and in most cases 7-zip and FreeArc compresses better than RAR.
Even newer WinZip compression modes beats WinRar in some cases.

* WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.

WinRar vastly beats WinZip in terms of supported formats, but when it comes to 7-Zip, Izarc, PeaZip, PowerArchiver (not mentioning the real champion in terms of support, Universal Extractor, because is only a de-compressor) all of them beats WinRar

* WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.

Almost any other software of this type does...

* When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it's all included.

Applys to almost any other software of this type... and please note that WinRAR is closed source so you are in reality buying the sheer permission to use it.
When you install an open source product you have full right to ue its code and its technology as best fits your needs, no one can prevent you in using part of that technology as i.e. WinRAR does preventing you in developing a working competitor for creation of RAR files.
It may be not critical, or even noticeable, for most users, but if we are talking of what the license buys to the user, we cannot forget an open source license offers far more to the final user than any closed source license.

* WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special "Wizard" mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use.

Wizards were quite popular in '90s... today the popularity of wizard is largely vanished... and that was a good riddance!

* WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits.

WinZip and PKZip also uses AES128 nowdays, 7-Zip and PeaZip uses AES128 and AES256

* WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

Old limitations of ZIP specs belongs to the past, and no modern format, like 7z, suffers this kind of limitations

* WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives.

Almost any other software of this type does...

* Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives.

* WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack.

For the last two points I have to fully agree with you: WinRAR team did a great work in implementing recovery records, AFAIK there is no comparable open source solution.
And, they are doing a great work in maintaining and updating a software of great quality for so many years, and they worth respect for this accomplishment alone!

 

[bigboxes]

I'm sorry bruceb, I like and respect WinRar but the post seems a plain advertising


WinRar is no longer the leader of the crowd in terms of compression, the leader today is PAQ and in most cases 7-zip and FreeArc compresses better than RAR.
Even newer WinZip compression modes beats WinRar in some cases.


WinRar vastly beats WinZip in terms of supported formats, but when it comes to 7-Zip, Izarc, PeaZip, PowerArchiver (not mentioning the real champion in terms of support, Universal Extractor, because is only a de-compressor) all of them beats WinRar


Almost any other software of this type does...


Applys to almost any other software of this type... and please note that WinRAR is closed source so you are in reality buying the sheer permission to use it.
When you install an open source product you have full right to ue its code and its technology as best fits your needs, no one can prevent you in using part of that technology as i.e. WinRAR does preventing you in developing a working competitor for creation of RAR files.
It may be not critical, or even noticeable, for most users, but if we are talking of what the license buys to the user, we cannot forget an open source license offers far more to the final user than any closed source license.


Wizards were quite popular in '90s... today the popularity of wizard is largely vanished... and that was a good riddance!


WinZip and PKZip also uses AES128 nowdays, 7-Zip and PeaZip uses AES128 and AES256


Old limitations of ZIP specs belongs to the past, and no modern format, like 7z, suffers this kind of limitations


Almost any other software of this type does...


For the last two points I have to fully agree with you: WinRAR team did a great work in implementing recovery records, AFAIK there is no comparable open source solution.
And, they are doing a great work in maintaining and updating a software of great quality for so many years, and they worth respect for this accomplishment alone!

You also sound like an advertisement. Isn't rar files the defacto container storage across the net? If not, please tell me what is. I could care less about compression. I usually select "store" when making my rar files (read: no compression). Bandwidth is cheap and plentiful these days. I just bought a couple of 2TB drives to add to my file server. What do we need 7zip for?

 

[lxskllr]

You also sound like an advertisement. Isn't rar files the defacto container storage across the net? If not, please tell me what is. I could care less about compression. I usually select "store" when making my rar files (read: no compression). Bandwidth is cheap and plentiful these days. I just bought a couple of 2TB drives to add to my file server. What do we need 7zip for?

I'd say .zip is the standard. .rar is proprietary and closed. If nothing else .7z gives piece of mind for future access. I also prefer open source software, and using Winrar after the trial period goes against the EULA, and the spirit of the software. I can use 7Zip as much as I want, and so can anyone else that wants to open my archives.

 

[an_89]

Isn't rar files the defacto container storage across the net?

A Linux user would say the de facto container is Tar or Zip, a Windows user would say it is Zip or Cab, a Mac user would say Tar, Zip and Dmg: those are the main built-in formats for those OSes without third parts software.

Please note that many official installers, when not distributed as specific executable form such as exe msi etc, are distributed as Zip (or Tar on Linux) rather than formats as Rar or 7z or Ace for the very same reason: they are meant to work without requiring the user to install third parts software.

Aside talking of the built-in support, Zip is still what is closest to a de-facto standard: it has fully documented standard both for creation and extraction, it is supported out of the box by mainstream operating systems, and by nearly all compression utility; it is still in wide use, and it was far before Rar was created.

Rar is very popular, and has good features, but today only recovery records is a true competitive advantage for Rar, as for encryption, compression and resolving limitations of older zip standard, modern Zip standard and the 7z format had done more than closing the gap with WinRar.

Bandwidth is cheap and plentiful these days. I just bought a couple of 2TB drives to add to my file server. What do we need 7zip for?

So for the very same reason what do you need Rar for?
Or why you need create compressed containers at all if space is cheap? (tag question!) You could go with a Zip with "store" option or uncompressed Tar...

You need Rar because saving space and bandwidth is always good, and a container is more than just saving space: it is strong encryption, ability to create multiple volumes, recovery records or good integrity checks that warns the user if it has to be re-downloaded something, and even more features...

What I'm saying is that Rar, when it started in 90s, was eons ahead Zip of the '90s, but today the old advertising (hey, there is nothing wrong in advertising!) is true only for the part about the superiority of the recovery records part (kudos to WinRar developers!), while most of the points posted are no longer true as Zip format and Zip utilities had overcome those limitations a decade ago.

 

[Pretty Cool]

Winrar is needed if you want to create .rar archives for distribution or for personal archiving. Only Winrar can create .rar's. Most archives I see in the filesharing arena are .rar's. In the mainstream, maybe you see .zip's the most. I have never even seen a 7zip or any other archive type that is supposed to be so great.

On usenet, recovery of the typical .rar is not done with Winrar itself but with par2's. Anyway for just extracting .rar's, I do not think there is much difference between any of them. Hell, install them all if you want.