"Insult me all you like, but I’m not the only one who thinks like this."
I know, and it’s mildly annoying.
"Why bother praising WinRAR for it’s excellent compression when the algorithm is not freely available?"
Because it’s cheaply available.
"Keeping such advances from the rest of society does not benefit anyone and should be called out as such, not praised."
I agree with you up to a point: I’d also like to see the details of the algorithm published. However, when I’m paying for WinRAR, I’m paying the authors for the excellent work they’ve done, which should be praised, and not “called out”.
“Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.” - R. Stallman
You’re killing me, boo
Another “Yay, WinRAR” post here, although the reasons I like it aren’t because of the .rar format. .zip really works just fine for me, and it’s a bit of a defacto standard.
No, the reason I love WinRAR is because of the spartan way it integrates into the Windows shell. I don’t want a notification area coughsystemtraycough icon for my decompression utility. Seriously, how often do I zip and unzip files? It’s comparitively rare. WinZIP tries to be this helpful decompression buddy but it just comes off as annoying – like Clippy. WinRAR does the job when called for and quits when it’s done. bam. No fuss. Done. I only ever enter the GUI when I’m building complex or complicated archives.
Ok, I’m starting to rant, and before I get started on Acrobat Reader, I’m gonna go ahead and quit.
Zip. Almost obiquitious compression format. Multi-platform well documented. It’s integrated on the shell of the mainstream operative system. So you can be sure that Joe can open the archive.
Rar. Proprietary closed format. Legally you can’t use a lib to create .rar files. You need to install extra software to handle this format.
Well in the Unix world things are different.
Personally I’m sticking with the gzip and the bzip2 formats.
Also, PocketRAR (http://www.win-rar.com/pocketrar.html) is freeware. It’s the best compression/decompression program for PocketPCs, and handles both RAR and ZIP format.
I have WinRAR installed but only use it to decompress files since the format is proprietary and closed. Typically I just stick with simple zip since it is ubiquitous. I have used 7-zip in the past (but only for standard zip archiving) and found it a bit slow, maybe I will give it another try using it’s native published format (7z). I have also used Power Archiver (http://www.powerarchiver.com/) and like it quote a bit, I didn’t know it had built in support for 7z! I will have to see how it compared in the tests.
If I send someone a ZIP they can open it …
If I send someone a self extracting ZIP or RAR then it will be blocked or stripped …
If I send someone a RAR they will not be able to open it (and it might get stripped as a “unknown” format) …
Actually, we have several clients (major NY financial firms) who are also unable to send/receive .zip files without them being stripped. So we end doing a lot of .zip_ or .zip.txt… stupid mail policies.
You’ve made the error of judging a service by the provider.
Your code snippets, for example, will be compressed ONCE, but downloaded and decompressed MANY TIMES. Take the download time, and add to it the decompression time, and you have a more accurate number.
An archiver that was for taking backups – emergency archives that will hopefully never be used – should be judged for compression time, since decompression is a rare event, so for that, RAR is a great choice.
That 2% compression for 5x time, it depends on whether than means you ship one CD or two, 2DVDs or 3 DVDs, and the logistics that a company has around part numbers, packaging, support (“No, Mr Wilson, you need to start with the other disk first”), etc.
RAR’s a good compression format, but I’ve never liked WinRAR. Thankfully, my zip utility of choice (IZarc) works fine with them, but it’ll be tar/gz, tar/bz2, or classic ZIP for a while yet.
Noah, the existence and popularity of Winrar has not hampered the growth of Bzip2 and 7zip, so I’m not sure what your point is. We’ll always be able to extract rar archives long after the format is abandoned, on any platform (as we can for many other long-dead formats), because the source code for unrar is freely available. Whether the license requires external plugins is irrelevant. Then you can repack them into 7z or whatever the flavor of the decade is by then.
Odd that you recommend gzip for archival, though, when its main niche is ultra-highspeed compression and total backwards compatibility.
I don’t think it’s stupid to base all of your software decisions on ‘open and free’, but many people don’t have that luxury and would rather pay for closed source software up until a truly better open-source equivalent comes along. Admittedly, Power Archiver is a pretty decent analogue to Winrar, but it’s just as Windows-only and closed-source.
I gotta agree with Aaron here. These are archives; they should be in an open format. Ten years from now your data’s going to be locked up and you won’t have the key. Maybe you’ll have the WinRar executable, but a lot of good that’ll do you on new hardware, OS, etc.
Sorry to disappoint mrprogguy, I am a proponent of the Free Software movement. The Open Software movement is something entirely different.
Using the words cult and socialism clearly show a lack of understanding on your part and you would do well to do some research into the issues at hand.
Eam, just because the authors have chosen this particular economic model for their business does not mean we should support it. There are many other viable ways to profit from software development. If the author released the algorithm and source code under a free (as in speech) licence that would truly be something to show appreciation for, be it in thanks or money.
Just because something is cheep doesn’t mean we should praise the distributor. Free (as in libre) software is not the issue at hand - if it was, you would chose one of the free (as in libre) alternatives.
Foxyshadis…
Noah, the existence and popularity of Winrar has not hampered the growth of Bzip2 and 7zip, so I’m not sure what your point is.
My point was that it is unwise and unethical to use non-free formats/software such as this.
Whether the license requires external plugins is irrelevant.
Untrue. If I wanted to package a free (as in speech) operating system such as Debian I could not include such tools and hence your RAR files are useless.
… but many people don’t have that luxury…
Sorry, come again? Many people don’t have the luxury of being able to download/get a free (as in speech and beer) GNU/Linux CD and replace Windows? Are you for real?
+1 for WinRAR, but as others have mentioned, it is no replacement for ZIP when sending files to people who might not have WinRAR or who might not have the computer acumen to know what the heck a .rar file is or how to decompress it or don’t trust running an EXE sent via email.
I use WinRAR to make/decompress ZIPs for externally-bound archives, but use the maximum RAR compression when making local backups.
Jeff started the blog with Today is “Support Your Favorite Small Software Vendor Day” why must EVERY thing dealing with computer be FREE. I make a living writing software and it is my ideas that I’ve put into my code. WinRAR is a good product with good stability and I don’t think that people should abandon software companies simply because they would like to stay in business. I’m all for paying a reasonable price for a stable product.