Utilities

mrina · Cheif of Air Staff Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 3178

WinRAR 3.71
License: Free
Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista
Limitations: 40-day trial, some features disabled
Date Added: September 24, 2007
Publisher's description of WinRAR
WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, an archiver and archive manager. RAR files can usually compress content by 8 percent to 15 percent more than ZIP files can. WinRAR's main features include strong general and multimedia compression, the ability to process non-RAR archive formats, ZIP compression and decompression, support for long filenames, programmable self-extracting archives (SFX), repair of damaged archives, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. Unicode is supported in archive filenames, allowing non-English filenames to be handled painlessly. You can manipulate the parameters of many archives at once and view a volume sequence as a single archive. WinRAR can convert other archive formats to RAR and search for specified text and files in archives.
Version 3.71 corrects several bugs and improves processing of corrupt RAR archives.

here are plenty of solid compression utilities to choose from, but this shareware powerhouse offers the features and ease of use that might place it at the top of its category. WinRAR is easy to use, lightweight, and flexible.

An intuitive interface lets you mouse over icons to see their functions and if you don't like their candy-coated appearance, you can always choose from several themes at the developer's site. The Folder Tree Panel makes sifting through your directories to find files easier than ever. But once you see the size savings of a RAR archive, with a compression ratio of 8 percent to 15 percent better than the ZIP format, you'll understand why so many users and developers are making the switch from other apps. With virus scans now integrated and minor interface tweaks for Vista, only the slightly slower decompression speed holds the app back.

Beyond its good looks and right-click readiness for basic compression and unzipping, WinRAR offers unpacking support for a large number of archive formats, including ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. WinRAR's advanced features are icing on the cake, with Unicode support for international formatting, embedded file comments, damaged archive repair, archive locking, self-extracting archives, and easy encryption. Anyone seeking an all-in-one archiving solution would be remiss to not check out WinRAR.
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