7zip is better anyway I don't understand why people still use WinRar. Then again I don't understand why people still use Windows either.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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Not everything is a competition. If people want to support WinRAR after the developer maintained it for more than 30 years and helped out millions of people, that's just fine.
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Or WinZip. I work for a company that literally has the licenses for every computer they own. Why? 7-zip is free.
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I use it on occasion, since it will deflate 100+GB zip files much faster than 7zip will. (7z is single threaded for pkzips)
It's been more than a decade since I used it to compress anything though. LZMA2 rocks.
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I'm glad you can have a Windows-free existence.
Some things just don't function well on Linux, but there are lots of us who are 99% Linux and don't use Windows unless we have to.
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anyone who still distributes anything compressed with winrar, please just fucking stop
use it for your personal archival purposes if you must, but please just fucking stop using it to share or distribute anything publicly. there's zero reason to use .rar over 7z or zip or tgz or any other open standard
Hey outlook, can you save all 15 attachments to this folder? The 15 attachments I can view in outlook? The 15 attachments that drag and drop out of the email into a folder as expected? The 15 attachments that I can individually save as expected to a folder?
"best I can do is a zip file for the whole batch"
Because it is a web browser underneath
I hate no Outlook. Half the time when your drag n drop it fails to save.
Edit - clearly I mean new outlook. I would love no outlook.
Does it matter when 7zip handles rar anyways?
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Can anyone eli5 what winrar offers that 7zip doesn't? I don't hate winrar but I failed to ever need it or prefer it instead of 7zip.
Winrar is older, so it has more sentimental users
Absolutely nothing, plus 7zip can be faster with better compression.
Well, apparently it can do some recovery of corrupted .rar, but who uses that format anyway
I've used .rar to backup some data to an unpowered drives, some time ago. You can reserve additional space for the checksums while compressing, so you won't be able to recover just regular .rar files.
A lot, sadly. I don't know why.
but who uses that format anyway
Pirates.
Nanazip is a fork of 7-zip that is better on Windows 11. Doesn't answer your question. Just making you aware
Lmao
7-zip ❌️
七zip ✅️
Not sure myself. Like many I used WinRAR back in the day, but it's been at least 15 years since I last installed it.
ITT: The most politically charged discussion of compression software I've ever read...
That's how I know I'm home
What else did you expect from lemmy?
Israel uses 7zip to genocide LGBTQ children in Palestine running Arch btw
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I own a valid WinRAR license!
Same. I've happily used it for over 2 decades and decided that they actually deserve some money for that. I've since switched to Linux, but don't regret paying for WinRAR at all.
You can still use it. WinRAR works on Linux with WINE
Oh God why though
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Ever since i found out that there is a yearly subscription for winrar on android, ive been paying for it.
I dont even use winrar anymore but it gives the same satisfaction as donating to wikipedia, and its just a few bucks so why not
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Pay for independently-developed software if you care about it continuing to exist. Steal from corporations all you want. But support independent devs (and small teams) to make sure they can keep maintaining the tools you love and rely on. It's the only way to not get swallowed by the big dogs.
Shhh you're a free software
Unlike 7-Zip, which is actually free and also open-source as well
7-Zip is by far the best archiving software on Windows
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I've never used WinRAR. I'm a 7-zip ~~fanatic~~ user.
PeaZip best zip.
You wrote 7zip wrong
You accidentally typed ”7” instead on ”Nana”
I didn't, PeaZip does the same but is compatible with any OS.
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RAR files just make me "Huh?" as they are nowhere near as good as 7zip, as universal as zip, or as nice as tarballs.
The memory of multi-part rar files being a good way to get big things voer dial-up is kinda long past, they're a relic, in my book.
I think theyre still popular on Usenet.
IDK all the history but rar has built in ability to create recovery data / parity volumes.
Parity data is like additional data that can help reconstruct any degradation.
That said, usually a standalone parity generator is used which can work with other types of archives, but rar is what everyone uses so why change.
Compression algos are ineffective on encoded / compressed media anyway.
It used to be important on Usenet, and maybe still is, because if a drive starts to fail somewhere and contains errors those errors can be reproduced across the network. Not sure if thats still a thing or why but certainly 10 years ago it was.
The summary to this rambling comment is: some communities still like rar because its what they've always used and there's no benefit to adopting 7z.
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