As we mentioned in a previous post, with each new final version of the popular WinRAR program, we will award 5 lucky winners with the same number of licenses for the latest version. The license will not give the right to upgrade but will last for life.

But what does WinRAR do?

WinRAR is a very lightweight, flexible and easy to use archiving utility that can decompress as well as compress both RAR and ZIP. WinRAR decompression supports a wide range of file formats. It is available in 32 and 64bit versions.

Installing WinRAR will not present you with any difficulties, and will complete almost immediately. The only point at which it will stop to ask for your options is when you have to decide which files the program will be able to process.

You can choose from the following formats: CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, Z and 7-Zip. These files can be decompressed by the application. WinRAR can only compress data in RAR or ZIP format.

Using WinRAR, which is a professional tool, is very simple, even for inexperienced users. By right-clicking on the file you wish to compress or decompress, you are given all the options and can be easily executed with one click. There is also the Wizard option if you run the program from your desktop icon. It will give you all the necessary options to process your files.

According to the developers of WinRAR, the latest version of the program takes advantage of multi-core system processors (if available) to achieve faster compression rates, depending of course on the hardware you are using.

WinRAR version 5.0 has the ability to create larger dictionaries that reach 1 GB in 64-bit versions of WinRAR, which results in higher file compression.

Other interesting new features that WinRAR 5.0 Beta 1 brings is the new damaged file recovery record function based on Reed-Solomon error correction codes. The new feature makes recovering damaged files (downloads with a bad connection, for example) much more powerful. In test scenarios of a damaged 1 GB file, with a 10% recovery record and an average damage size of 32KB, WinRAR was able to repair nine times more damage than the previous version.

Since version 5.0 WinRAR has been enhanced with BLAKE2sp hash which is used as file checksum. With the addition of BLAKE2, one can definitively detect whether 2 or more files have different or different CRC32 values ​​and whether two different files can share the same value. Furthermore, if CRC32 has a small value, there is a small chance that corrupted files will not be detected, which cannot happen using BLAKE2.

It is worth noting, however, that these processes use a significant portion of RAM (around 120 MB). Compression ratios vary depending on the type of file you wish to compress (for example, if you choose to compress .mp3 or .avi files there will be no difference in file size as they are already compressed), but overall it seems to be much better and faster than many other archivers.

Safety

Until now, .RAR files used 128-bit AES encryption. Following user requests, with the release of the new WinRAR 5.0 beta version, the application upgraded its algorithm to include 256-bit AES encryption. This ensures the protection of your sensitive data from unwanted actions.

Functions

With WinRAR, in addition to compressing or decompressing any type of file, you can also

Automatically delete the original files after compression - decompression.
Create an SFX file, i.e. an *.exe file that will decompress itself (in a folder of your choice) if you try to run it.
Lock your files with a password.
Compress while also keeping recovery files in case the file is ever corrupted.
Test your files.
Add authenticity verification.

Version 5.00

1. New archival format.

• You can use the regular application option to create archives or via the command line to create
  RAR 5.0 archives. Older versions of WinRAR will not be able to decompress archives compressed with RAR 5.0.

2. Changes to the RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:

• The maximum size of the compression dictionary has been increased to 1 GB in the 64-bit version of WinRAR. The 32-bit version of the application can use a dictionary of up to 256 MB when creating an archive. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions can decompress archives with any dictionary size.
• The default dictionary size for RAR 5.0 at 32 MB usually results in a higher compression ratio but slower speed than RAR versions 4.
• The syntax of the -md switch has been modified to support larger dictionary sizes. The appending of “k”, “m”, and “g” specifies the size in kilo – , mega – , and gigabytes. For example – md64m for a 64 MB dictionary. If you do not use modifiers, the program uses megabytes
• The RAR 5.0 format includes Intel IA-32 executables and delta compression algorithms, while theRAR 4x text, audio, true color, and Itanium algorithms are no longer supported. The algorithms that were removed were not efficient for modern data types.
• The RAR 5.0 decompressor can utilize different CPU cores. Although not to the same extent as the compression algorithm. This improves decompression speed on large files with little compressible data or when using BLAKE2 checksums.

3. Changes to the RAR 5.0 file format:

• The time it uses when saving a compressed file is UTC instead of local time, which it used in previous versions. This makes exchanging files between different time zones much more practical.
•  File names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.

4. The new version brings improved recovery of damaged files. With Reed – Solomon error correction. If recovery is necessary the write size is quite large, 5% and more.
The new error correction system provides much greater resistance to multiple failures compared to the recovery offered by RAR 4.x

Changes to the RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:

• The encryption algorithm has been changed from AES – 128 to AES – 256 CBC mode. The generation key is now PBKDF2 with HMAC – SHA256.
• Better password verification will allow you to identify incorrect passwords without having to open the entire folder.

Its price is 29.95 euros.

Thetica

New encryption, very strong compression and more security. Completely new kernel structure for better compression results on new files and of course for better cooperation with new hardware.

Negatives

Older versions do not open version 5 files and the user will have to compress them according to the computer they will be used on. As with any compression tool, the use of system resources is quite high. Although version 5 is much better than version 4, the system it is used on can always use improvements.

Summary

WinRAR continues to be the leading Windows compression tool. High compression, encryption more security for every computer signed by a very specialized and reliable company.

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