Better than Winzip, if you aren't concerned with sharing your data with the public.
Written: Jun 04 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Better than Winzip in almost every way.
Cons: Uses a non-standard compression routine making it worthless for many.
The Bottom Line: A must have for any power user, or anyone who compresses their own files for themselves.
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| grimjack2's Full Review: Rarsoft WinRAR |
Winrar is an unusual item to see reviewed. It seems to be primarily used by software pirates who prefer its numerous advantages over Winzip for large archives. They like it more specifically because it makes it very easy to span a large compressed file over lots of smaller ones. It is a much more convenient splitter of files than Winzip, which seems to only work with floppy disks, and not as easily. Winrar also has a very intelligent naming convention that Winzip lacks. When you make want a compressed file to be spread among smaller ones, Winrar names the first extension .RAR, then next one .R00, then .R01, etc.. This works very well as a quick check to see whether or not you are missing any files, and to see how many total files the complete archive is. You select the maximum size of each volume as an option when you start the compression.
When you install the software it adds itself to the right click menu of the file manager, like Winzip. This allows you to compress and decompress with ease. It even has a quickmenu title that will uncompress the file to a subdirectory with the same name as the archive. I find this very convenient.
Winrar can even read and write Zip files. It can easily replace your Winzip program if you wish it to. It certainly has many features that are superior to Winzip. The question is whether or not it is better enough to make up for the lack of standardization that Winzip has created. I don't think I would want to put a .RAR file on a web site somewhere for public download. As I said in my Epinion on Winzip, Zip has a market share that even Microsoft dreams of having. Everyone has Winzip, at least in the shareware version. Those that don't most likely have never downloaded anything from the web. Any web site with numerous downloads will almost always be compressed in nothing but Zip.
Winrar seems to compress better on average, but can be much slower! I believe it is trying different compression algorithms to see which makes the file the smallest. When you go to add something to an archive, there is a list of six different ratios of speed to compression size to choose from. Some quick experimentation led me to believe that there isn't much of variation in size with most small files (around 1 Meg). For larger files, or when a file is just a little too big to fit on a floppy, this is an invaluable option. There is a specific multimedia compression specifically for .WAV and .MPG files that seems to be at least 10% smaller than Winzip, but it took almost eight times as long to compress a 500K .WAV file.
An interesting note is that although at maximum settings, it seems to compress a little better than Winzip, I cannot compress a .ZIP file any further. Mathematically, I would think it could, but once a file is zipped a certain way, even Zip cannot take it down any further.
Winrar has many more options with both compression and compressed file than Winzip. Aside from the variable compression settings, there are many other options to improve your compressions. You can keep a log as to what you've compressed, and by how much. It will have an estimation for how long it thinks it will take to finish compressing or uncompressing a file. You can actually choose to have the program estimate how long it will take before it even begins. I can't imagine this would be used by anyone compressing anything less than five gigs of data at once, but it is a nice option to have. It can actually attempt to repair a damaged .RAR file. It is also very easy to make a self extracting .RAR file. (This is one way to bypass the general lack of popularity with the format). Winrar can also read ARJ and CAB file, but cannot write to them. I particularly like the feature that when it finishes compressing or uncompressing a large file, it makes a noise, so I know I can go back and continue doing something else.
Also, Winrar has an interface that it is very similar to explorer, and it lets you do more generic file maintenance than Winzip. It allows you to search, and to view files much easier.
Winrar is definitely superior to Winzip in many ways, but I still cannot recommend it to anyone other than the poweruser. The format is still very rare, and the most software companies are not willing to trust that anyone can download and extract any compressed format other than a Zip file. The full version is almost the same price as Winzip, and offers many advantages, so I hope it quickly gains the foothold that it deserves.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
grimjack2
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Location: San Rafael, CA, Marin County
Reviews written: 181
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About Me:
Film is my favorite art form. I live a life of constant amelioration.
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