WinRAR facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids
WinRAR
Screenshot of WinRAR 7.01, trial version
Developer(s)	Eugene Roshal (developer), Alexander Roshal (distributor)
Initial release	22 April 1995; 30 years ago (1995-04-22)

Stable release	7.01 / 15 May 2024
Preview release	Lua error in Module:Wd at line 1575: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Written in	C++
Operating system	Windows Vista or later
Platform	IA-32, x64
Size	3.4 MB
Available in	50+ languages
List of languages Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian Cyrillic, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Colombian Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese
Type	File archiver
License	Trialware

WinRAR is a popular computer program that helps you manage files. It's a type of software called a file archiver. This means it can combine many files into one smaller file, called an archive. Think of it like putting many books into one box to make them easier to move.

WinRAR was created by Eugene Roshal. It can make and open files in formats like RAR and ZIP. It can also open many other types of compressed files. WinRAR checks if your archived files are complete and correct using special codes called checksums. You can also use WinRAR to create archives that are encrypted (locked with a password), split into multiple parts, or can open themselves (called self-extracting archives).

WinRAR works mainly on Windows computers. There's also a version for Android phones called "RAR for Android." Other related tools, like "RAR" and "UNRAR," work on different systems such as macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD.

How WinRAR Has Changed Over Time
What Can WinRAR Do?
How WinRAR is Licensed
Keeping WinRAR Safe
WinRAR's History
- Major Versions and What They Added
- Operating Systems Supported by WinRAR
See also

How WinRAR Has Changed Over Time

WinRAR and its file format, RAR, have improved a lot since they first came out. The first versions of WinRAR were written using a programming language called C. Modern versions use C++. The Android version uses a mix of Java and C++.

Newer RAR Formats

In version 5.0, a new format called RAR5 was added. This new format uses the same `.rar` file extension, but older versions of WinRAR cannot open RAR5 files. The older format is now called RAR4.

The RAR5 format (now just called "RAR" since version 7) made big improvements.

It can handle much larger "dictionaries" up to 64 GB. A dictionary helps the program compress files better.
This usually means files can be made even smaller.
Archives with dictionaries larger than 4 GB need WinRAR 7.0 or newer to open them.
If you encrypt files, the security was made stronger, from 128-bit to 256-bit AES encryption.
The maximum length for file names inside RAR and ZIP archives also increased a lot.

Cool Features Added in Version 5.0

A stronger way to check file integrity, called BLAKE2, was added.
It can find duplicate files.
It supports special Windows file links (NTFS hard and symbolic links).
A "Quick Open record" helps open very large archives faster.

Changes in RAR5 Format

Some older features were removed in RAR5. These include comments for individual files and special compression for text and multimedia. Also, the names for split archives changed from `archivename.rNN` to `archivename.partNN.rar`.

RAR7 Format Improvements

The RAR7 format, released in 2024, brought even more changes.

It supports a massive 64 GB compression dictionary.
It added two new algorithms to make compression even better.
Older WinRAR versions (5.0 and above) can still open RAR7 archives if their dictionary size is up to 4GB and there's enough computer memory.

What Can WinRAR Do?

WinRAR has many helpful features for managing your files:

Creating and Opening Archives

It can create compressed files in the RAR or ZIP formats.
It can open and unpack many different archive types, including ARJ, BZIP2, CAB, GZ, ISO, JAR, LHA, RAR, TAR, UUE, XZ, Z, ZIP, ZIPX, ZST, and 7z.
It can also unpack `.exe` files that contain these archive formats.

Checking Files and Compression

WinRAR can check if files in many archive types are correct and undamaged.
It uses your computer's multiple processing cores (multithreading) to compress and decompress files faster.

Special Features for RAR 7.0 Archives

When you create archives using the latest RAR 7.0 format, you get these powerful options:

Huge File Support: It can handle files as large as 16 EiB, which is an incredibly huge amount of data (about 18 million terabytes!).
Flexible Dictionary Size: You can choose a compression dictionary size from 1 MB up to 64 GB. (On 32-bit computers, it's limited to 256 MB for creating, but can still open archives with 1 GB dictionaries).
Stronger File Check: You can choose to use a 256-bit BLAKE2 file hash instead of the standard 32-bit CRC32 for better integrity checking.
Advanced Encryption: For security, you can use AES encryption with a 256-bit key. This makes your files very secure.
Data Protection: WinRAR can add special "recovery records" or "recovery volumes." These act like backup data that can help fix damaged archives, even if some parts are missing.
Quick Access: An optional "quick open record" helps you open large RAR files much faster.
Split Archives: You can create archives that are split into multiple smaller files. This is useful for sharing large files.
Self-Extracting Files: You can make files that unpack themselves without needing WinRAR installed on the other computer. These can even run programs before or after unpacking.
Windows Permissions: It supports NTFS permissions and special file links on Windows.
Long File Names: It can handle very long file names, up to 65,535 characters.
Comments: You can add comments to your archives.
Time Stamps: It can save the exact times when files were changed, created, or last opened.
Duplicate File Handling: It has options for dealing with duplicate files.
Backup Options: It offers advanced backup features, like keeping older versions of files.

How WinRAR is Licensed

WinRAR is a "try before you buy" program. This means you can use it for free for 40 days to try it out. After this trial period, you can still use many of its features without paying, but some functions might be limited. This is done to encourage people to buy it, but also to make it useful even if they don't. In China, there's a special free version for personal use.

Even though creating RAR files is a special feature of WinRAR, the company RARLAB provides the code for the "UnRAR" tool for free. This means other software can be made to open RAR files, even if they can't create them.

The "RAR for Android" app is free to use, but it shows advertisements. You can pay a small fee to remove these ads. Buying a WinRAR license for your computer does not remove ads in the Android app.

Keeping WinRAR Safe

Like all software, WinRAR has had some security issues that have been fixed over time.

In 2019, a problem was found in a part of WinRAR that handled ACE archives. Because of this, WinRAR stopped supporting ACE files from version 5.70 onwards to keep users safe.
Older self-extracting archives (made before version 5.31) could have a problem where they might load wrong files if those files were in the same folder.
There were reports of a problem in older versions (v5.21 and earlier) that could allow someone to put harmful code into a self-extracting file. However, experts said that this only worked if a user was tricked into running a bad file, which is a risk with any unknown executable file.
WinRAR version 6.23 fixed an important security problem that could have allowed harmful software to run automatically from archives in certain situations.

WinRAR's History

Major Versions and What They Added

The very first command-line versions of RAR and UNRAR came out in 1993.
The early version of WinRAR (1.54b) was released in 1995.
3.00 (2002): Introduced the new RAR3 archive format. Older WinRAR versions could not open these new files. It added "solid compression" (which compresses files together for better results) and special compression for WAV audio files.
3.41 (2004): Added support for Linux .Z archives (like GZIP and BZIP2). New options included storing full file paths and restoring compressed NTFS files.
3.50 (2005): Allowed users to change the look of the program with "skins."
3.60 (2006): Improved compression speed on computers with multiple processors by using a "multithreaded" algorithm.
3.80 (2008): Added support for ZIP archives that used Unicode file names (which allows for many different characters).
3.90 (2009): Added support for 64-bit computer systems and further improved multithreading.
4.00 (2011): Made decompression (unpacking files) up to 30% faster.
4.10 (2012): Removed all limits for ZIP archives, allowing an unlimited number of files and archive size. It also allowed creating multi-volume ZIP files.
4.20 (2012): Significantly increased compression speed in SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) mode, but this used more memory. ZIP compression also started using SMP.
5.00 (2013): Introduced the RAR5 archive format. This new format made better use of multi-core processors and allowed for a much larger dictionary size (up to 1 GB with 64-bit WinRAR). Some older, specialized compression methods were only kept for the older RAR format.
5.50 (2017): Added support for a "master password" to encrypt other passwords stored in WinRAR. It also improved repairing damaged RAR5 archives and added support for Lzip archives.
5.70 (2019): Removed support for ACE archive decompression due to major security problems.
6.00 (2020): Added "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options when there are reading errors.
6.10 (2022): Added support for unpacking ZST archives and increased the maximum recovery record size.
6.23 (2023): Fixed important security problems (CVE-2023-40477 and CVE-2023-38831) in WinRAR.
7.00 (2024): Stopped supporting the creation of older RAR 4.x format archives. Increased the maximum path length limit to 65,535 characters and the maximum RAR dictionary size up to 64 GB for the 64-bit version.

Operating Systems Supported by WinRAR

Newer versions of WinRAR do not work on very old computer operating systems. If you have an older computer, you might need to find an older version of WinRAR.

RAR 2.50 was the last version for very old systems like MS-DOS and OS/2 (16-bit).
RAR 3.93 was the last version for MS-DOS and OS/2 (32-bit). It was also the last version for Windows Mobile.
WinRAR 2.06 was the last version for Windows 3.1, Windows NT 3.1, 3.5, and 3.51.
WinRAR 3.93 was the last version for Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows Me.
WinRAR 4.11 was the last version for Windows 2000.
WinRAR 6.02 was the last version to support Windows XP (except for the command-line version, Rar.exe).