What is the difference between rar and zip formats. WinZip and WinRar archivers: what to choose? Similarities and differences between archivers. Why archive files?

The main advantage of the ZIP format is its popularity. Thus, most archives on the Internet are in ZIP format. If you want to send an archive to someone, but you are not sure that the recipient has the WinRAR program to unpack the archive, then it is best to use the ZIP format. However, in this case, you can also send a self-extracting (SFX) archive. Such archives are slightly larger than usual, but no program is required to unpack them. A self-extracting archive is an archive to which an executable module is attached. This module allows you to extract files by simply running the archive as a regular program. Thus, no additional external programs are required to extract the contents of the SFX archive. However, WinRAR can work with an SFX archive like any other, so if you do not want to run an SFX archive, you can use WinRAR to view or extract its contents.
SFX archives, like any other executable files, usually have the extension .EXE.
SFX archives are convenient in cases where you need to transfer an archive to someone, but you are not sure that he has the appropriate program to unpack it. You can also use SFX archives to distribute your own programs.
To create an SFX archive from the command line, you can use the sfx switch when creating a new archive, or the S command to convert an existing archive to SFX.
Another advantage of ZIP is speed. ZIP archives are typically created faster than RAR archives.

RAR archives.

WinRAR is a 32-bit version of the RAR archiver for Windows. It is a powerful tool for creating and managing archives. WinRAR supports the following features:
Full support for RAR and ZIP archives.
Original highly efficient data compression algorithm.
Special multimedia compression algorithm.
Command line interface.
Self-extracting archives and volumes (SFX).
Recovering physically damaged archives.
Other additional functions, such as encryption, locking, adding archive comments (with support for ANSI ESC sequences), error logging, file order listing, volume labels, and others.
WinRAR can be used in two ways: in graphical shell mode with a standard Windows interface and in the command line. To use WinRAR in shell mode, double-click on the WinRAR icon; You can then use the buttons and menus to archive and retrieve files.
The WinRAR package includes the Rar.exe file. This file is also a 32-bit version of RAR for Windows, but it only supports the command line interface and runs in text mode. Typically, the console version of RAR is used to call from batch files (BAT and CMD), to run from a DOS prompt, etc. It supports more commands and switches on the command line than WinRAR.
To use WinRAR in command line mode, you need to open the “Run…” dialog or the “Programs/MS-DOS Session” window in the “Start” menu and enter the desired command. If you run WinRAR from the command line without parameters, the shell will be activated. The general syntax is as follows:

WinRAR<команда> -<ключ1> -<ключN> <архив> <файлы…> <@файл-список…> <путь для извлечения\>
To create and manage archives, use command line options (commands and switches). A command is a string indicating that RAR should perform the appropriate action. Keys are used to change the action of a command. Other parameters are the names of the archive and the files that will be added to or extracted from the archive.

The following commands are used:

a– add files to the archive.
Example: Creates or updates an existing myarch archive by adding all the files in the current directory:
rar a myarch
c– adding an archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is being processed. The comment length should not exceed 62000 bytes.
Examples:
rar from distrib.rar
cf– adding file comments. They are displayed when the v command is processed. The file comment length is limited to 32767 bytes.
Example:
rar cf bigarch.txt
cw– write an archive comment to the specified file.
d– delete files from the archive. Please note that if, as a result of executing this command, all files in the archive are deleted, then the empty archive is deleted.
f– refresh files in the archive. Updates files already contained in the archive only if they are older than the ones being updated.
e- extract files to the current directory.
m[f]– move to archive [files only]. During a move operation, after the archive has been successfully created, the files and directories added to it are deleted. If the f modifier and/or the -ed switch are used, the directories will not be deleted.
To– block the archive.
l[t]– view the contents of the archive [with technical information]. A list of files is displayed, similar to the v command, but without paths, i.e. Only file names are shown. If the t modifier is present in the command, additional technical information will also be displayed.
R– output the file to the standard output device (stdout).
r– restore the archive. Archive recovery consists of two stages. First, the damaged archive is scanned for recovery information. If the archive contains information for recovery, and the damaged part of the data is continuous and has a size of up to N*512 bytes (N is the number of sectors with recovery information located in the archive), then the chances of successful recovery are very high. After recovery at this stage, a new archive will be created with the name _RECOVER.RAR.
If there is no information for recovery in the damaged archive or the archive cannot be completely restored with its help due to the severity of the damage, then the second stage of recovery begins. During this stage, only the structure of the archive is reconstructed. Files with an incorrect CRC are not recovered, but it is possible to recover intact files that would otherwise be inaccessible due to a damaged archive structure.
After this stage is completed, a reconstructed archive is created with the name _RECONST.RAR.
During a restore operation, RAR may ask the user whether to add the found item to the archive.
Click Yes (Y) to add this item to _RECOVER.RAR.
rr[N]– add recovery information. You can add optional (redundant) information to the archive for recovery. This slightly increases the size of the archive, but can help when restoring an archive damaged as a result of a floppy disk failure or other failure. The recovery information can contain up to 8 sectors.
If the data is damaged in one place, then each recovery sector can recover 512 bytes of damaged information, but if there is multiple damage, this value may decrease.
s[name]– convert archive to SFX. The archive is combined with an SFX module (the module from the Default.sfx file or specified in this command is used). In the Windows version, the Default.sfx file must be located in the same directory as Rar.exe, in the Unix and BeOS versions - in the user's home directory.
t– test files in the archive. This command simulates a file extraction without writing anything to the output stream to check the specified files.
Examples:
Test archives in the current directory:
rar t *
u– update files in the archive. Adds files that are not yet in the archive, and updates only those files in the archive whose versions on disk are newer than those in the archive.
v[t]– a detailed list of archive contents. The following information is displayed about the files: full name, file comment, size, compression ratio, date and time of last update, attributes, CRC, compression method and the minimum RAR version required for extraction. If the t modifier is applied, additional technical information will also be displayed.
To view the contents of all archive volumes, you must use an asterisk (*) instead of the archive extension or the v key.
x– extract files with full paths.

Keys (used together with commands):

-? – display help information about commands and keys. The same information appears if an incorrect command is given or RAR is launched without commands.
-ac– remove the “Archive” attribute after archiving or extracting a file (Windows version only).
-ag[format] – add the current date and time to the archive name. Adds the date and time the archive was created to the archive name. Useful for regular backups.
The default format "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" can be overridden by using the format parameter of this key. The following characters are allowed:
Y – year
M – month
MMM – month as a string (Jan, Feb, etc.)
D – day
H – hours
M minutes (treated as minutes if after hours)
S – seconds
The RAR format provides better compression than ZIP in most cases, especially when creating continuous archives.

Continuous archives.

These are RAR archives, packaged in a special way in which all compressed files are treated as one sequential data stream. Continuous archiving is only supported in the RAR format; this type of archive does not exist for the ZIP format. The compression method for RAR archives is regular or continuous (user selects).
Continuous archiving significantly increases the compression ratio, especially when adding a significant number of small, similar files. However, there are some disadvantages of continuous archiving to be aware of:
Continuous archives are updated more slowly than regular archives.
To extract a single file from a continuous archive, you must analyze all previous archived files, so extracting individual files from the middle of a continuous archive is slower than extracting from a regular archive. However, if all or the first few files are extracted from a continuous archive, then in this case the unpacking speed is almost equal to the unpacking speed of a regular archive.
If any file in a continuous archive is damaged, then it will also not be possible to extract all the files following it.
Continuous archives are best used in cases where:
Archives are rarely updated.
There is no need to frequently extract one or more files from the archive.
Compression ratio is more important than compression speed.
Files in continuous archives are usually sorted by extension, but an alternative sort order can be specified using the special rarfiles.lst file.
Another important feature of RAR is support for polyatomic archives.
Polyatomic archives.
Volumes are fragments of an archive consisting of several parts. Volumes are only supported in RAR format; ZIP volumes cannot be created. Typically, volumes are used to store a large archive on several floppy disks or other removable media.
The first volume in the sequence has the usual extension .rar, and the extensions of subsequent volumes are numbered as .r00, r01, r02, etc. Volumes can also be contiguous and self-extracting.
Archive volumes do not allow files to be added, updated, or deleted later.
They are much more convenient and easier to use than the so-called “span disks” ZIP archives. WinRAR does not support such ZIP archives - polyatomic archives can only be created in the RAR format.
In addition, the RAR format has several important features that ZIP lacks, such as adding recovery information that allows you to recover physically damaged files due to floppy disk failure or loss due to any other reason, and locking important archives to prevent accidental modification. .
It is worth noting that older file systems do not support files larger than 4GB, so when working with such files the user must use the NTFS file system.

Greetings!
Files of these types of archives are found everywhere on the Internet. What is their difference, is rar or zip better, and why couldn’t you settle on just one format?

To answer this question, it is worth turning to history.

The ZIP format dates back to 1989. It was then that this compression format was announced, and the first version of the archiver program appeared.

Just don’t think that no other compression formats existed before, it’s just that the ZIP format was quite “mature”, and its developer was ultimately able to achieve widespread support from popular operating systems of that time.

Ultimately, this played a key role in the popularity of ZIP, and led to a significant lead over its competitors.

However, time passed, the semiconductor industry developed, and computing power grew. And if previously computers were used exclusively for calculations and were a niche product, over time they became capable of performing multimedia functions.

Naturally, all this spurred demand for computers, on which it became possible to play, access the Internet, etc. Against the background of the growing PC market, applications began to appear, among which was WinRAR.

In 1995, the first version of WinRAR for Windows appeared. Already at that time, the developer, who, by the way, is our compatriot, introduced support for features that ZIP did not have: support for multi-volume (splitting archives into several parts), the ability to add information to restore a damaged archive, etc.

To this day, WInRAR and its RAR compression standard are developing quite dynamically, the algorithm and speed of archive compression/decompression, etc. are improving.

All this is highly valued by users, thanks to which this archiver takes its place “under the sun”.

So what is the difference between RAR and ZIP today?

1) Compression in the ZIP format is a little faster, however, the size of the final archive is slightly larger when compared with RAR.

2) RAR has the ability to create a “Continuous Archive”, which achieves even greater compression; ZIP does not have this ability.

3) ZIP never learned how to create a multi-volume (archive divided into several files of equal size) type of archive, but RAR was able to do this from the very beginning.

4) Restoring a damaged ZIP archive is very difficult; in RAR, this possibility is initially provided in the algorithm.

5) To this day, any ZIP archiver/archive may have problems with compressing/decompressing files larger than 2 gigabytes.

6) To unpack/create a RAR archive, you need a ZIP archive that can be unpacked/created in a popular operating system using the standard method.

So we examined in detail the advantages and disadvantages of RAR and ZIP. Finally, I suggest you familiarize yourself with them, which allow you to work with most types of archives, including ZIP and RAR.

If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.

Hello dear readers of my blog. Today I present to you an article about two archivers WinZip And WinRar. We will find out how they are similar and how they differ WinZip And WinRar.

If you have large files, but there is little space left on your computer’s hard drive to store them, and you don’t want to throw them away, then you can use the help of special compressor programs. Using a special compression algorithm, the compressor reduces the file size, and you can safely continue to “clutter” your computer. Often such programs for reducing file size are called “archivers”. Because indeed, after compression, the file is not suitable for normal use, but only suitable for convenient storage on a virtual drive shelf.

The most famous archivers among users of the Windows operating system are: WinZip And WinRar. These compressors are among the oldest on the market; they have long proven themselves to be reliable and trouble-free tools. Both programs are paid, with a trial period provided. However, in this case, the concept of a “trial period” is so vague that in fact, you can use archivers for years completely free of charge. From time to time (and not very often), the program modestly reminds the user that, they say, it is not Free at all. After which the user annoyedly, like an annoying fly, closes the pop-up reminder and continues to enjoy the freebie with a calm heart. As you can see, modesty adorns not only a person, but also some programs.

What is the difference between WinZip and WinRar?

Despite the external similarity, differences still exist and are quite significant. Firstly, the creator WinRar is a Russian programmer Evgeny Roshal. That's why WinRar is more tailored to our users and is mainly popular in the territory of the former USSR. It is believed that WinRar has a higher degree of compression, but is slower.

Archiver WinZip is the work of the hands and brain of Western scientist Phil Katz. Accordingly, you can more often find WinZip in foreign countries. By speed WinZip superior WinRar, but is inferior in terms of compression ratio. We can say that this is where all the differences end.

Both programs support many interface languages, so there will be no problems with use. By the way, the issue of operating speed and compression ratio is quite relative. Much depends on the file format and its size. In some cases, notice a significant difference in the work of archivers WinZip And WinRar It won't work.

Why do we need archivers for modern computers with hard drives of many gigabytes?

Indeed, using an archiver on a desktop is in most cases impractical. You only lose quite a lot of time on the compression procedure, and there is already enough space. You will need compressed files to transfer files via email or over the Internet. If you try to send a 15 MB photo by email, you will have to wait many minutes for transmission. In this case, it is more convenient to compress the photo and send it as an archive.

In addition, modern email clients have built-in anti-spam and anti-virus protection. If you try to send a program by email (the same WinRar) with the .exe extension, an email client or even a server will not allow such a file because it is suspicious. To bypass the email client's protection, the exe file is compressed and sent as a respectable and harmless archive.

RAR archives.

The following commands are used:

Keys (used together with commands):

Continuous archives.

Hi all! Today we will talk: how zip and rar archives differ from each other; Let's look at how to convert rar to zip and vice versa; how to create and unpack zip and rar folders. I probably won’t write about the history of the creation of each of the formats, all this can be found you know where, but without further ado, I’ll get straight to the topic.

I had already written the entire article, when suddenly it turned out that some users do not know what an archive is. In the end, I decided to make an insert and tell it like this What or is an archive on a computer. For those who are in the know, go down a paragraph below, there is the main article. And so, an archive on a computer is a kind of file, like an ordinary folder, which can contain all kinds of files, sometimes other archives. The difference between it and a regular folder is that the archive, to save space, compresses the files placed in it. Thanks to this property, archives have become very popular among users, because it has become possible, with the same amount of computer memory, to store a significantly larger amount of information, as well as less clogging of the channel when sending over networks (Internet, internal networks). There are various archive formats - gzip, tar, 7z, ISO, but the most popular are still rar and zip (that's what we're talking about today). And now, the article itself.

Benefits of Zip

Zip– an archive format that is supported by many operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, Dos, Linux and many others. etc. The main feature of the format is that it can be unpacked by default on all operating systems. In other words, in order to open this archive, a bare OS is enough, without installing archivers (programs for working with archives). And this is the big difference between zip and rar. After all, the latter cannot do its job without installing its own archiver. That is why zip is used in all assemblies of installation files for Operating Systems, as well as when working on almost all hosting sites, and in cases where files will be transferred to multiple user computers.

Another difference between the zip format and rar is the speed at which files are compressed into an archive. Zip compresses faster. Although, in fairness, it is worth noting that this advantage becomes obvious only with large compression volumes (more than 1 GB). Well, or the user has outdated hardware, released at the beginning of the 2000s (although I don’t think there are any of those left).

But, despite the advantages, zip also has its disadvantages, which we will talk about in the Advantages of Rar section.

Benefits of Rar

Rar– like zip, it is capable of compressing files into an archive and is supported by all major operating systems, including mobile ones (Android and Mac), although to work with rar, as mentioned above, you need an archiver program. The most popular of them is probably WinRar. True, it's paid. But, for sure, everyone in our country called USSR, there is a cracked version of it. But, despite the need for additional software, rar is able to compress files much better than zip. You can compress files in rar with selective density. Although, it is worth considering that the more the archive is compressed, the longer it will take to compress.

The second difference between rar and zip is the ability to password-protect the archive. But, it is worth remembering that if you forget your password, it will be impossible to recover it. The password for rar archives is often used in e-commerce, when the archived product can be downloaded freely, but the password for the archive is sent to the client’s email only after payment.

Another advantage of rar over zip is the ability to archive any amount of information (over 8 million terabytes, however, only on NTFS disks). While zip has certain limitations (today it is 2 GB).

Also, rar can restore (using special .rev files) damaged or even missing archives, while zip cannot do this.

How to convert rar to zip and vice versa

In order to convert one format to another, there are several ways, and the first of them is:

Online zip and rar converters

There are a huge number of such converters on the Internet, but, unfortunately, most of them only convert rar to zip, and not vice versa. You can find them by request Convertrar inzip + online(+ online means that even without this word, the search engine results will be relevant (meet the search conditions)) or something similar. Despite the fact that their obvious advantage is the absence of the need to have a converter on your hardware, their disadvantage is more than significant - a limitation on the size of the converted file. As a rule, the threshold for conversion is set in the range of 50-100 MB (in my opinion, this is ridiculously low). And if you want to convert a file with a large weight, you will either have to pay or subscribe to the mailing list and start receiving spam by email (by the way, I wrote here. A very useful article. I advise everyone to read it). That is why I will not recommend any of the online resources to you. I would advise you to take a closer look at the second method to convert rar to zip and vice versa:

Stationary ways to convert rar to zip and vice versa

How to convertrar inzip. There are various programs for this, both paid and free. I don’t see the need to spend my money here, and therefore I advise you to take a closer look at the free options. There are plenty of them on the World Wide Web. Take at least the RAR to ZIP converter (link to the program’s official website).

And here, convertzip inrar a little more complicated. There are several paid programs. But, unfortunately, I haven’t seen any free ones. Therefore, I can recommend a simple but effective way - unzip the zip and archive it in rar, using the same WinRar program or any other similar one. By the way, you can do the same to convert rar to zip.

But, in order to unzip or archive files, you need to know how to do it. Therefore, I propose to learn this now. For example, we will use the same WinRar program (it is assumed that it is installed on your computer).

How to archive files

For example, we will use a document in the format . PDF. Original file size 33,465 KB. And so, let's transgress. Getting started to create archives is the same for everyone. Click on the required file with the mouse and press the right button. In the window that opens, select WinRAR, then Add to archive.

How to create an archivezip

If we want to create a zip archive, then select it by making the appropriate mark in the checkbox on the left side in the position Archive format. If desired, you can place marks in the checkboxes and on the right, in the field Archiving options.

Delete files after packaging means that the archived file will be deleted and will remain only in the created archive.
CreateSFX archive means that the archive will be in program format (.exe), and accordingly will be opened as a program, and not as an archive.
Test files after packaging means a regular check using the WinRAR program for errors during archiving.

Along with this, you can choose Compression method from Without compression before Maximum. The default value is Ordinary. The higher the compression level you select, the more compressed the source file will be, but the longer it will take to archive. So, let's try to archive the test file By high-speed method(method Without compression we will not use it, it is clear that there will be no differences from the source file) and Maximum.

The high-speed method compressed the file to 28,918 KB. Thus, the difference from the control sample was 4,547 KB. Using the maximum method, we managed to compress the file to 28,696 KB. The difference from the control sample is 4,769 KB. The difference between the Maximum and High-Speed compression methods is 222Kb. But in terms of speed, I didn’t notice a visual difference, although, of course, there was one.

How to create a rar archive

Essentially everything is the same. In position Archive format check the RAR checkbox. But, in the field Archiving options There will be many more options to choose from. I will not consider the items discussed in the section on creating a zip archive, they are identical. I'll go through the rest of the positions.

Create a continuous archive– means that several files placed in the archive will be treated as one indivisible one.
Add an electronic signature– contains the name of the author who created the archive, the name of the archive, the time of the last update and other parameters. Used to encrypt volumes.
Lock archive– sets a password. Perhaps this is worth stopping at.

How to create a password for an archiverar? Check the checkbox Lock archive.

Then go to the tab Additionally and press the button Set password.

A window opens Archiving with password. Enter your password into the appropriate positions, then click OK.

Now, when you try to open a password-protected document, a window will pop up asking you to enter the password.

Let's talk about compression parameters for rar archives. Let's try to archive the test file again By high-speed method And Maximum.

The high-speed method compressed the file to 28,159 KB. Thus, the difference from the control sample was 5,306 KB. Using the maximum method, we managed to compress the file to 26,873 KB. The difference from the control sample is 6,592 KB. The difference between the Maximum and High-Speed compression methods is 1,286Kb. The time difference between the Maximum and Speed methods was just over one second.

And here is a graph of archiving comparisons between the zip and rar methods (based on the experiment conducted above).