WinRAR is a powerful archive manager (Win86 / 64, Linux, Mac). RAR files can usually compress content by 8 percent to 15 percent more than ZIP files can. WinRAR is a powerful compression tool with many integrated additional functions to help you organize your compressed archives. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files from the Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd. By consistently creating smaller archives, WinRAR is often faster than the competition. Space, time. WinRAR is ideal for multimedia files. WinRAR automatically recognizes and selects the best compression method. The special compression algorithm compresses multimedia files, executables and object libraries.

Main features of WinRAR:
В»Full support for RAR and ZIP archives
В» Using the original high-performance data compression algorithm
В»Having a graphical shell with support for drag & drop technology
В» Ability to use the command line interface
В»Managing archives of other formats (CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR , GZ, TAR.GZ, BZ2, TAR.BZ2, ACE, UUE, JAR, ISO, 7Z,
Z) В»Support for continuous archiving for better compression
В» Support for multi-volume archives
В»Create self-extracting (SFX) regular and multi-volume archives with standard or additional SFX modules
В» Ability to restore physically damaged archives
В»Ability to create and use recovery volumes to recreate missing Parts of multi-volume archives.
В»Support for Unicode encoding in file names
В» Additional functions (encryption of data and filenames in the archive, adding archive comments, keeping the error log)
В»Using third-party interface design as separate themes

Features of WinRAR:
- Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs.
- WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.
- WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.
- WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special "Wizard" mode that allows you to access the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use.
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits.
- WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8.589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.
- WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives.
Even physically damaged archives.
- WinRAR features are developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack.

Version 5.50

   1. WinRAR and command line RAR use RAR 5.0 archive format by default.
      You can change it to RAR 4.x compatible format with "RAR4" option
      in archiving dialog or -ma4 command line switch.
      
      If you prefer RAR 4.x format by default, use "Create default..."
      button on "Compression" page of WinRAR settings and set "RAR4"
      in the displayed dialog.

      This change affects only new clean installs. If you already saved
      RAR format in the default compression profile in previous versions,
      WinRAR respects stored settings.
   
   2. Use "Set master password" button in "Organize passwords" dialog
      to encrypt saved password records and protect them from unauthorized
      access. 
      
      If saved passwords are protected with master password, you need to
      enter the master password and press "OK" in password prompt to access
      them. If entered password does not match the master password,
      it is treated as a usual password for archive operations.

      Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
      Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
      if you wish to see how protection works. Enter a valid and then
      empty master password to remove encryption from previously protected
      password records.

      This WinRAR version uses a new data format for password organizer,
      so passwords stored in "Organize passwords" dialog are not readable
      by older versions. It does not affect archive encryption formats
      and encrypted archives are compatible with previous WinRAR version.
      Organizer data is converted to a new format only when you save it
      and not immediately after installing WinRAR.

   3. Prompt proposing to set the master password is displayed
      when storing a password in compression profile. You can enter
      the master password to encrypt password data stored in Registry
      and protect it from unauthorized access. You will need to enter
      the master password in password prompt dialog to access
      such compression profile after that.

      Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
      Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
      if you wish to see how protection works.

   4. By default, WinRAR uses AES-256 in CTR mode to encrypt ZIP archives.
      While AES-256 is significantly more secure than ZIP 2.0 legacy
      encryption algorithm, it can be incompatible with some older
      unzip software. If compatibility with such tools is required,
      you can enable "ZIP legacy encryption" option in the password
      dialog or use -mezl switch in the command line mode. 
   
   5. Added extraction support for .LZ archives created by Lzip compressor.
   
   6. Modern TAR tools can store high precision file times, lengthy
      file names and large file sizes in special PAX extended headers
      inside of TAR archive. Now WinRAR supports such PAX headers
      and uses them when extracting TAR archives.

   7. New "Store modification time" option on "Time" page of archiving
      dialog can be used to prohibit storing the file modification time
      in RAR 5.x archives. Former "High precision modification time"
      option is replaced by "High precision time format".

   8. New "Full paths in title bar" option in "Settings/General" dialog.
      If enabled, the full path of currently opened folder or archive
      is displayed in WinRAR title bar.

   9. New "File types to open as archives first" option
      in "Settings/Compression". Here you can define how Enter
      or double click on a file with non-archive extension and archive
      contents should be processed in WinRAR file list in file
      management mode. Examples of such files are .docx or self-extracting
      .exe archives. You can instruct WinRAR either to open such files
      as archives first or to execute or open them in associated programs.

      Default settings are to open self-extracting exe and to run
      other types of archives with non-archive extension.

      Regardless of these options, you can always open any such 
      archive file by pressing Ctrl+PgDn on its name in WinRAR file list.

      Default folders for archives and extracted files are moved
      from "Settings/Compression" to "Settings/Paths".

  10. New "Copy full names to clipboard" command in "File" menu
      places full names of selected files to clipboard.      

  11. Changes in the context menu displayed when right clicking
      the file list in WinRAR:

      a) several commands, which are also present on the toolbar
         or in main menu, such as "View" and "Repair", are removed
         from this context menu;

      b) "Copy full names to clipboard" command is added;

      c) "Run" for executables, "Open in associated application"
         for associated files and "Show archive contents" for archives
         are added. They allow to choose a way to process SFX archives
         and archive files with non-archive extensions.

         These items are present only in the file management mode
         and are not available inside of archives.

  12. LZ and ZIPX are added to list of associations in Settings/Integration
      dialog.

  13. LZ and ZIPX extensions are added to default list of formats for
      -ms switch ("Specify file types to store") invoked without parameters.

  14. You can specify 'f' charset value in -sc switch to use UTF-8
      encoding. For example:

      rar a -scfl arcname @filelist.txt

      to read contents of filelist.txt as UTF-8 text.

  15. RAR "lt" and "vt" commands display file times with nanosecond
      precision. Such precision is used in RAR5 archives created
      by RAR/Unix 5.50 and newer. Archives created by WinRAR have 100ns
      file time precision.

  16. Only '+', '-' and '1' precision modifiers are supported
      in -ts switch now. Use '+' to store the file time with maximum
      precision, '-' to omit the file time and '1' to store it with
      1 second precision. Intermediate precision modes previously
      defined with '2' and '3' modifiers are not available in RAR 5.0
      archive format and ignored by -ts switch.

  17. If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file
      in RAR5 archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password
      for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
   
  18. File path information is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over
      a name of archiving file in the operation progress window.

  19. Name of currently active compression profile is displayed
      in the archiving dialog above "Profiles..." button.

  20. If "Find" command is invoked from inside of archive subfolder,
      "File names to find" will include the path to this subfolder.
      So "Find" will search only starting from this subfolder.

  21. Bugs fixed:
   
      a) fixed crashes and security vulnerability when unpacking corrupt
         RAR archives;

      b) WinRAR failed to unpack files in ZIP archives compressed
         with XZ algorithm and encrypted with AES;
      
      c) if "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR settings was turned off
         and "Put each file to separate archive" archiving mode was used,
         "gold" part of total progress bar did not display the compressed
         data ratio correctly;

      d) SFX archive extraction progress was incorrect in case of
         multivolume SFX archive with total volume size exceeding 4 GB;

      e) if archived folder name included trailing spaces, if user
         selected and extracted some folders in non-root archive folder
         and if "Allow potentially incompatible names" extraction option
         was turned off, WinRAR could lose one or more leading characters
         in extracted folder name;

      f) if only creation or only last access file time was stored in RAR5
         archive with 1 second precision, such as with -ma5 -tsm- -tsa1
         switches, this stored time was ignored when extracting.

Only for V.I.P