WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and compressor utility for Windows. It can create archives in RAR or ZIP file formats,[2] and unpack numerous archive file formats. There is an Android app called "RAR for Android",[3] and command-line versions called "RAR" and "UNRAR" (widely released since autumn of 1993),[4] available for Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows console mode, and MS-DOS.
The new RAR5 file format added numerous features, but removed comments for each file (though archive comment still remains), authenticity verification, and compression algorithms for specialized text and multimedia. RAR5 also changed the file name for split volumes from "archivename.rNN" to "archivename.partNN.rar".[6]
The RAR5 file format increased the maximum dictionary size to 1 GiB, thus allowing a WinRAR user to choose between 11 different compression directory sizes from 1 MiB to 1 GiB. The default directory size in WinRAR version 5 was increased from 4 MiB to 32 MiB typically resulting in higher compression ratio, though the user can change the default setting back to 4 MiB.[6]
RAR5 also enhanced or added optional features: optional AES encryption was increased from 128-bit to 256-bit, option for 256-bit BLAKE2 file hashing algorithm (instead of default 32-bit CRC32), optional duplicate file detection, optional NTFS hard and symbolic links, optional Quick Open Record to allow large archives to be opened faster, maximum path length for files in RAR and ZIP archives is increased up to 2048 characters.[6]
Features:
- Pack (create) or validate (test) RAR or ZIP archive files. Choice of RAR4 or RAR5 file format.
- Unpack ACE, ARJ, BZ2, CAB, EXE, GZ, ISO, JAR, LHA, RAR, TAR, UUE, XZ, Z, ZIP, ZIPX, 7z archive files.[6][7]
- Multiple-core CPU threading compression and decompression.
When creating RAR archive files:
- Support for maximum file size of 16 EiB (264 bytes) minus 1.
- Choice of compression directory size from 1 MiB to 1 GiB (256 MiB limit on 32-bit Windows). Default size is 32 MiB.[6]
- Optional 256-bit BLAKE2 file hash in addition to default 32-bit CRC32 file checksum.
- Optional encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a 256-bit key.
- Optional data redundancy is provided in the form of Reed-Solomon recovery records and recovery volumes, allowing reconstruction of damaged archives.
- Optional "Quick Open Record" to open RAR files faster.
- Ability to create multi-volume (split) archives [
- Ability to create self-extracting files.
- Support for advanced NTFS file system options, such as NTFS hard and symbolic links.
- Support for maximum path length for files up to 2048 characters (stored in UTF-8 format).
- Optional archive comment (stored in UTF-8 format).
