WinRAR

WinRAR is a proprietary file archiver utility for Windows, developed by Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal and distributed by win.rar GmbH. It was first released in 1995. WinRAR creates and decompresses archives in the RAR format, its own compression algorithm, and can also unpack ZIP archives and a wide range of other formats. It is widely used to compress single large files or groups of files and to manage multi-volume archives.

WinRAR provides data compression using the RAR algorithm and supports solid archives, multi-volume archives, password-based encryption (AES-128), recovery records, and archive repair. It can generate self-extracting archives for distribution, integrates with the Windows shell for drag-and-drop and context-menu operations, and provides both graphical and command-line interfaces.

It natively supports RAR and ZIP archives and can extract many other formats; it also supports recovery volumes, comments, and Unicode file names.

WinRAR is proprietary shareware, offering a 40-day trial; after evaluation a license is required for continued use, though the software continues to operate with periodic reminders.

Although primarily a Windows application, related tools such as UnRAR provide extraction on other platforms, and the company distributes related utilities and mobile apps.