What is WinRAR?
WinRAR is a competing product to WinZip; both products
compress/decompress and archive files. Files compressed with WinRAR
typically have the .rar extension, as opposed to
.zip for WinZip archives. WinRAR can also create and
decompress a WinZip archived file.
Like later versions of WinZip, WinRAR has the ability to create
archives in multiple parts; that is, it not only can compress a file
but can split it up into smaller parts. In WinZip, this is called a
"split Zip file"; in WinRAR, this is called a "multipart" or
"multivolume" archive. When this is done, the extensions for the
smaller RAR files end up being .r00, .r01,
and so forth, with the first file just having the .rar
extension. To decompress a multipart archive, you simply have to
ensure that all the component files (.rar,
.r00, .r01, etc.) are in the same
directory. When you double-click the .rar file, all other
files are automatically found by WinRAR without you having to select
them, and the final decompressed file is automatically assembled from
all those files.
In many Usenet newsgroups, .rar files are
favored over .zip files; many FAQs for
newsgroups, especially the binary ones, mention and openly
push .rar over .zip. Many posters to various
groups have said that they prefer the way WinRAR creates multipart
archives. Multipart archives are important on Usenet, as a majority of
newsgroup servers have strict size limitations for binary groups, and
many foreign newsgroup users tend to be on Internet service providers
(ISPs) that have strict megabyte limitations on
downloads. Because of these limitations, it is actually considered
impolite to post very large files, as many people won't be able to
download them all at once due to the restrictions. Posting multipart
archives solves this problem, as users can download as much as they're
able to at one time and still eventually end up with the complete
file.
Also see:
- What do various computer file extensions stand for?
- What is WinZip, and how do I install it?
- About Usenet newsgroups
Last modified on June 24, 2008.






