WinRAR Review

By Luqmaan

Company – Rarlab

OS – Windows (all)

Author – Alexander Roshal

Brief Summary – Powerful, compressing and archiving tool

Available in multiple languages

General Ratings

Interface – 4/5
Ease of use – 5/5
Memory Usage – 4/5
Popularity – 5/5
Price ($30.00) – 4/5
No. of bugs – 5/5

Software Specific Ratings

Compression – 5/5
Compatibility – 5/5
Security – 5/5
Limitations

Rating Description

Interface

Simple interface uses the basic XP visual style. Contains an integrated file explorer as part of the main interface.

Ease of use

Easy to use application. Also supports context menu integration. Uses a menu based style with non technical terms.

Memory usage

Consumes little memory, may take a little memory during initialization of compression.

Popularity

Very popular ‘recommended’ application in most software sites.

Price

A good application that is worth the price of $30, though the application can be used even after the evaluation period has expired.

No. of bugs

Virtually bug free.

Compression

Excellent compression, compresses files up to even 10% of the original size in some cases. Compresses files relatively quickly.

Compatibility

Supports all compression formats (ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP, GZIP, etc.) including other formats (JAR) as well. Supports compression in ZIP & RAR formats only. Some features (Split into volumes, lock archive), available in RAR format only.

Security

Efficient password protection capability.

Limitations

WinRAR has been tested to support compression of up to a million files. Compression in the ZIP format is limited to files only up to 2GB in size. RAR compression supports much higher stats. (Though using the RAR format may not be recommended as the windows default compression utility does not support it.)

Other Details

Badware free?

Totally badware free tested using Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Ad Aware Anti-Spyware

Disk space required (5/5)

Installer size – ~ 1.2MB

Installed directory size – ~3MB

Portability

Special U3 and portable versions available for U3 and other portable storage devices.

Limitations in free version:

None. 40 day trial version where all features of the program are available.

Overall (5/5):

Top level application capable of supporting high compression ratios and speeds. Recommended here at Computer Stuff.