WinRAR Features
Every computer user is accustomed to using the same programs on a daily basis. And many users don’t even know what latent features are in their favorite programs. The WinRAR developers made the program not only convenient and reliable in use, but also interesting, having equipped it with some not quite standard functions.
It’s been quite a long time since the fashionable trend to create programs for personal computers, adding to them some surprises that should convince the user of the right choice, cheering him and raising his spirits. The purpose of these bonuses is to give a person a break from work and relax a little, distracted by pleasant moments. The developers of the archiver WinRAR also decided to please the users, presenting several surprises.
First, you need to go to the menu, which is called “About the program.” In order to see it, you need to click the button on the book stack. It will be necessary to click on the picture with the image of the beach.
Not so long ago there was one more version of the well-known archiver. It can also be found on the Web without problems and download. This version is intended for recording on removable storage media. If necessary, this device is then connected to a personal computer, after which you can proceed directly to launch the program from it. The creation of such version of the program was overdue and was objectively necessary, as the use of the archiver may be necessary for users whose computers are not connected to the Internet, and those who work on computers where the installation of software from the outside is prohibited.
It is widely believed that it is impossible to select the key to the WinRAR key to the electronic signature, in contrast to the password for the archive. Accordingly, the generators of license files with exactly the same functionality as the original data, which were transferred to users after paying for the license itself, were not produced for long enough. But with one of the famous hacker groups for any name for WinRAR was released a license file generator. Experts regard this as a successful attack on the eponymous site and, but not an attempt of cryptographic attack of the electronic signature. Nevertheless, the developers and owners of WinRAR say that this fact is not capable of destroying confidence in the reliability of the program. At least, it’s because such burglaries cannot be of a mass nature. If you perceive what happened as an attack on the WinRAR laboratory itself, it becomes clear that the client part of the program – the one that is installed on personal computers – won’t suffer. And if it was an attempt to crack the digital signature, then it will be almost impossible to repeat it.
WinRAR is a coeval of Windows 95. The first version of the archiver was released in 1995, even earlier than the first on the really convenient operating system (Windows 1,2,3 could hardly be called revolutionary and convenient). WinRAR supports all versions of Windows, temporarily excluding the latest Win10, and has a RAR archive format port on the operating systems of the Unix family, Linux, Android and MacOS.
In Ubuntu (Linux), without any problems, you can unpack any Windows-created archive, through the graphical shell or command line of the terminal emulator. One of the main advantages of the archiver, when used in business, is availability for all categories of users.
WinRAR exists in more than 40 languages, including Hebrew and Chinese.
WinRAR supports all known types of archive formats: ACE, ARJ, bz2, CAB, GZ, ISO, JAR, LZH, TAR, UUE, XZ, Z, ZIP, ZIPX, 7z. In the middle of the 2000s, the so-called “self-extracting archives” of SFX became very popular and they were created simply through “WinRAR” in one click.
Not many users know that the developer of the WinRAR archiver (as well as the RAR format itself) is the Russian programmer Eugene Lazarevich Roshal from Chelyabinsk.
WinRar supports “multi-core” and multithreading, which allows it to test processors and motherboards, measuring the time for unpacking for a specific period of time. Versions of WinRAR are also oriented to the bit depth of processors and Windows: 32 and 64 bits.
The distribution policy of WinRAR is considered to be one of the best marketing moves in the history of software for computers. WinRAR can be downloaded for free and used without any appreciable restrictions; the inconvenience is only delivered by reminders of the free copy, which doesn’t affect the functionality of the program. Licensed versions of WinRAR are distributed with a fairly competent price policy (from $ 29 to $ 6 per copy, depending on the number of licenses). The UnRAR unpacker code is distributed free of charge.
WinRAR has an interesting function to protect archives from damage. It is available when creating a new archive in the “Commands” menu as an option “Add information to restore” or from the archive creation window.
To ensure unauthorized access to the archive (valuable or commercial data), WinRAR provides creation of passwords for archives with encryption of file names. The new internal encryption algorithm RAR5 is used (starting with the fifth version of the archiver of 2013), built on the basis of AES with a 256-bit key (this type of protection is fully used by the US government). Developers recommend using a password consisting of at least 9 characters. When creating an archive, you can use the formats of both RAR4 and the newest RAR5 to choose from.
The archiver has several user-friendly features: shut down the computer after completing the backup task, wait if the task is executed in parallel on another WinRAR copy (not to hang the system with parasitic load) and archive files in the background. Also, WinRAR supports the change of interface icons.
Disadvantages of the program are:
- No transfer function from archiver to Windows Explorer. After extracting the archive, you need to search for the files yourself.
- In older versions, there are flaws in working with tar files.
- The problem of renaming archives with a long name with spaces.
- Slow speed of extracting files.
- Archive size limit.
