WinRAR Releases and Discussion

More about the certificate revocation:

Information on the revocation of WinRAR 5.91 digital certificate
https://www.rarlab.com/revoked591.html

 

Edit: I saw the explanation... The fact that the revoked one was issued by Symantec is reason enough to move on.

 

WinRAR 6.0 beta 1 Released (October 22, 2020)
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Changelog

Spoiler: Changes v6.0 beta 1

Version 6.0 beta 1

1. "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt.
"Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part
only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors.

For example, if you archive a file, which portion is locked by another
process, and if "Ignore" is selected in read error prompt,
only a part of file preceding the unreadable region will be saved
into archive.

It can help to avoid interrupting lengthy archiving operations,
though be aware that files archived with "Ignore" are incomplete.

If switch -y is specified, "Ignore" is applied to all files by default.

Previosuly available "Retry" and "Quit" options are still present
in read error prompt as well.

2. Exit code 12 is returned in the command line mode in case of read errors.
This code is returned for all options in the read error prompt,
including a newly introduced "Ignore" option.

Previously more common fatal error code 2 was returned for read errors.

3. If several archives are selected, "Extract archives to" option group
in "Options" page of extraction dialog can be used to place extracted
files to specified destination folder, to separate subfolders
in destination folder, to separate subfolders in archive folders
and directly to archive folders.

It replaces "Extract archives to subfolders" option and available
only if multiple archives are selected.

4. New -ad2 switch places extracted files directly to archive's own folder.
Unlike -ad1, it does not create a separate subfolder for each unpacked
archive.

5. "Additional switches" option in "Options" page of archiving
and extraction dialogs allows to specify WinRAR command line switches.
It might be useful if there is no option in WinRAR graphical interface
matching a switch.

Use this feature only if you are familiar with WinRAR command line
syntax and clearly understand what specified switches are intended for.

6. Compression parameters in "Benchmark" command are changed to
32 MB dictionary and "Normal" method. They match RAR5 default mode
and more suitable to estimate the typical performance of recent
WinRAR versions than former 4 MB "Best" intended for RAR4 format.

Latest "Benchmark" results cannot be compared with previous versions
directly. New parameters set produces different values, likely lower
because of eight times larger dictionary size.

7. When unpacking a part of files from solid volume set,
WinRAR attempts to skip volumes in the beginning and start
extraction from volume closest to specified file and with reset
solid statistics.

By default WinRAR resets the solid statistics in the beginning
of large enough solid volumes where possible. For such volumes
extracting a part of files from the middle of volume set can be
faster now.

It does not affect performance when all archived files are unpacked.

8. Previously WinRAR automatically resorted to extracting from
first volume, when user started extraction from non-first volume
and first volume was available. Now WinRAR does so only if all volumes
between first and specified are also available.

9. Warning is issued when closing WinRAR if one or more archived files
had been modified by external apps, but failed to be saved back to
archive, because an external app still locks them. Such warning
includes the list of modified files and proposes to quit immediately
and lose changes or return to WinRAR and close an editor app.

Previous versions issued a similar warning while editing a file,
but did not remind it again when quitting.

10. "Move to Recycle Bin" option in "Delete archive" options group
of extraction dialog places deleted archives to Recycle Bin
instead of deleting them permanently.

11. New "Clear history..." command in "Options" menu allows to remove
names of recently opened archives in "File" menu and clear drop down
lists with previously entered values in dialogs. For example,
these values include archive names in archiving dialog
and destination paths in extraction dialog.

12. "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog are
now available for 7z archives. Additionally to modification time,
WinRAR can set creation and last access time when unpacking such
archives.

13. ""New" submenu items" options group is added to
"Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog. You can use
these options to remove "WinRAR archive" and "WinRAR ZIP archive"
entries in "New" submenu of Windows context menu.

New state of these option is applied only after you press "OK"
both in "Context menu items" and its parent "Settings" dialog.

14. <Max>, <Min> and <Hide> commands can be inserted before the program
name in SFX "Setup" command to run a program in maximized,
minimized or hidden window. For example:

Setup=<Hide>setup.exe

15. It is possible to specify an additional high resolution logo
for SFX module. If such logo is present, SFX module scales
and displays it in high DPI Windows mode, providing the better visible
quality compared to resizing the standard logo.

Use "High resolution SFX logo" in "Advanced SFX options" dialog
to define such logo. In command line mode add second -iimg switch
to set the high resolution logo.

Recommended size of high resolution logo PNG file is 186x604 pixels.

16. If archive currently opened in WinRAR shell was deleted or moved
by another program, WinRAR displays "Inaccessible" before archive name
in the window title. Also it flashes the window caption and taskbar
button.

17. "Total information" option in "Report" dialog is renamed to
"Headers and totals". Now it also adds headers of report columns
additionally to total information about listed files and archives.

18. If archive processing is started from Windows context menu
in multiple monitor system, WinRAR operation progress and dialogs
use the monitor with context menu.

While basic multiple monitor support was present in previous versions
shell extension for mouse driven commands, now it is extended to
operations initiated from keyboard and to dropping files to archives.

19. New -imon<number> switch allows to select a monitor to display
WinRAR operation progress and dialogs in the command line mode.

Use -imon1 for primary and -imon2 for secondary monitor.
For example, "WinRAR x -imon2 arcname" will start extraction
on secondary monitor.

It works only in the command line mode and does not affect
interactive WinRAR graphical inteface also as console RAR.

20. Switch -idn hides archived names output in archiving, extraction
and some other commands in console RAR. Other messages and total
percentage are not affected.

You can use this switch to reduce visual clutter and console output
overhead when archiving or extracting a lot of small files.

Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting
few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.

21. Former "-im - show more information" switch is changed to
"-idv - display verbose output" for consistency with console RAR
-id[c,d,p,q] message control options and avoid a potential name
conflict with newer -imon switch.

While WinRAR still recognizes both -im and -idv, in the future
-im support can be dropped.

22. It is allowed to add an optional %arcname% variable to compression
profile name. Such variable will be replaced with actual archive name.
It might be convenient when using with "Add to context menu" profile
option. For example, you can create ZIP compression profile
and set its name to "Add to %arcname%", to display it with actual
ZIP archive name in context menu.

23. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Ins keyboard shortcuts can be used
in "Diagnostic messages" window to copy contents to clipboard.

24. More text is allowed in tray icon hint before a lengthy text
is truncated. Also such text is now truncated in the middle of string,
so both command type and completion percentage are still visible.

25. In case of clean install, if previous version compression profiles
are not present, "Files to store without compression" field
in newly created predefined compression profiles is set to:

*.rar *.zip *.cab *.7z *.ace *.arj *.bz2 *.gz *.lha *.lzh
*.taz *.tgz *.xz *.txz

You can change this field and save a modified value to compression
profile later.

Previous versions set this field to blank for clean install.

26. Destination path history in extraction dialog treats paths like
'folder' and 'folder\' as the same path and displays only 'folder'
entry. Previously they occupied two entries in the history.

27. "Enable Itanium executable compression" GUI option and -mci command
line switch are removed. Optimized compression of Itanium executables
is not supported anymore. WinRAR still can decompress already existing
archives utilizing Itanium executable compression.

28. Bugs fixed:

a) "Lock", "Comment" and "Protect" commands could not be applied
to several archives selected in WinRAR file list at once;

b) SFX archive process did not terminate after completing
extraction in Windows 10 if archive comment included "Setup"
and "SetupCode" commands, did not include "TempMode" command
and setup program was running for more than 8 minutes;

c) compression profiles with quote character in profile name
could not be invoked from Explorer context menu.

 

WinRAR 6.0 beta 2 Released (November 12, 2020)
Download
Changelog

Spoiler: Changes v6.0 beta 2

Version 6.00 beta 2

1. "Convert" and "Wizard: Unpack an archive" commands report
the file open error if archive was deleted by some other application
before processing. Previously they skipped such archives silently.

2. "Find" command issues "No files or folders selected" warning
for no items selected and "Selected items" search area.

3. Bugs fixed:

a) in beta 1 names of interface themes were added to "Folder tree"
submenu instead of "Themes";

b) %arcname% variable was not expanded in archiving dialog
profile name when used in default profile.

 

WinRAR 6.01 beta 1 Released (March 2021)
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Changelog

Spoiler: Changes v6.01 beta 1

Version 6.01 beta 1

1. Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut selects the entire text in WinRAR comment
window.

2. If -idn switch is used together with -t or -df in console RAR
when archiving, it additionally disables "Deleting <filename>"
or "Testing <filename>" messages, normally issued by these switches.

Also -idn disables folder creation messages when extracting
a file to non-existing folder.

3. WinRAR and ZIP SFX module refuse to extract contents of ZIP SFX
archives if ZIP central directory is resided after beginning
of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible
attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into signature body.

4. Bugs fixed:

a) "Convert archives" command could incorrectly convert Unicode
comments in RAR archives.

b) if two archive information windows had been opened from Explorer
context menu, the compression ratio bar in the first window
could erroneously display a value for second archive.

It did not affect the ratio and other text details at the right
of window. Only the vertical bar at the left could be updated
to a wrong value;

c) if "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option was enabled
in extraction dialog, "Waiting for another WinRAR copy" title
was not set in command progress window while waiting;

d) when extracting a symbolic link, previous versions did not
overwrite existing symbolic links even if user requested it
in overwrite prompt.

 

WinRAR 6.01 Released (April 12, 2021)
Download
Changelog

Spoiler: Changes v6.01

Version 6.01

1. Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut selects the entire text in WinRAR comment
window.

2. If -idn switch is used together with -t or -df in console RAR
when archiving, it additionally disables "Deleting <filename>"
or "Testing <filename>" messages, normally issued by these switches.

Also -idn disables folder creation messages when extracting
a file to non-existing folder.

3. WinRAR and ZIP SFX module refuse to extract contents of ZIP SFX
archives if ZIP central directory is resided after beginning
of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible
attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into signature body.

4. Bugs fixed:

a) "Convert archives" command could incorrectly convert Unicode
comments in RAR archives.

b) if two archive information windows had been opened from Explorer
context menu, the compression ratio bar in the first window
could erroneously display a value for second archive.

It did not affect the ratio and other text details at the right
of window. Only the vertical bar at the left could be updated
to a wrong value;

c) if "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option was enabled
in extraction dialog, "Waiting for another WinRAR copy" title
was not set in command progress window while waiting;

d) when extracting a symbolic link, previous versions did not
overwrite existing symbolic links even if user requested it
in overwrite prompt.

 

WinRAR 6.02 beta 1 Released (May 2021)
Download
Changelog

Spoiler: Changes 6.02 beta 1

Version 6.02 beta 1

1. ZIP SFX module refuses to process SFX commands stored in archive
comment if such comment is resided after beginning of Authenticode
digital signature. It is done to prevent possible attacks with
inclusion of ZIP archive into the signature body.

We already prohibited extracting contents of such malformed archives
in WinRAR 6.01.

We are thankful to FireEye Mandiant team for reporting this issue.

2. WinRAR uses https instead of http in the web notifier window,
home page and themes links. It also implements additional checks
within the web notifier. This is done to prevent a malicious web page
from executing existing files on a user's computer. Such attacks
are only possible if the intruder has managed to spoof or otherwise
control user's DNS records. Other factors are also involved
in limiting its practical application, including a security alert
prompt asking for a user's confirmation before opening a malicious page.

We would like to express our gratitude to Igor Sak-Sakovskiy
for bringing this issue to our attention.

3. Where appropriate, SFX archive displays the additional line
with detailed error information provided by operating system.

For example, previously such archive would display "Cannot create file"
message alone. Now this message is followed by a detailed reason
like access denied or file being used by another process.

In the past this extended error information was available in WinRAR,
but not in SFX archives.

4. Switch -idn hides archived names also in 'v' and 'l' commands.
It can be useful if only the archive type or total information
is needed.

5. If -ibck -ri<priority> switches are used together, WinRAR process
sets the priority specified in -ri switch. Previous versions ignored
-ri and set the priority to low in the presence of -ibck switch.

6. When using "File/Change drive" command, WinRAR saves the last folder
of previous drive and restores it if that drive is selected again
later.

7. Name of unpacking file is now included into WinRAR incorrect password
warning for RAR5 archives. It can be helpful when unpacking
a non-solid archive containing files encrypted with different passwords.

8. Bugs fixed:

a) "Convert archives" command issued erroneous "The specified password
is incorrect" message after succesfully converting RAR archive
with encrypted file names if new password was set and archive
was opened in WinRAR shell;

b) if command progress window was resized up and then quickly resized
down to original dimensions, window contents could be positioned
incorrectly.

 

Hello,

A new stable release of WinRAR version 6.02 was posted today.
Website - Downloads - Changelog

 

That was fast, thx.

 

WinRAR 6.10 beta 1 Released (October 2021)
Download
Changelog

Spoiler: Changes 6.10 beta 1

Version 6.10 beta 1

1. WinRAR can unpack contents of .zst and .zipx archives utilizing
Zstandard algortithm.

2. Added support of Windows 11 Explorer context menus.

Beginning from Windows 11, an application can add only a single top
level command or submenu to Explorer context menu.

If "Cascaded context menus" in "Integration settings" dialog is on,
this single item is a submenu storing all necessary WinRAR commands.

If this option is off, only one extraction command for archives
and one archiving command for usual files are available.
You can select these commands with "Context menu items..." button
in "Integration settings" dialog.

3. Windows XP is not supported anymore. Minimum required operating
system version is Windows Vista.

4. "Close" item is added to "When done" list on "Advanced" page of
archiving dialog. It closes WinRAR window, when archiving is done.

5. "When done" list is added to "Options" page of extraction dialog.
It allows to select an action like turning a computer off
or closing WinRAR after completing extraction.

6. Switch -si can be used when extracting or testing to read archive
data from stdin, such as:

type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs\

Even though the archive name is ignored with this switch,
an arbitrary dummy archive name has to specified in the command line.

Operations requiring backward seeks are unavailable in this mode.
It includes displaying archive comments, testing the recovery record,
utilizing the quick open information, processing multivolume archives.

Prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed.
Use -o[+|-|r], -p<pwd> or -mes switches to suppress such prompts.

7. New -ep4<path> switch excludes the path prefix when archiving
or extracting if this path is found in the beginning of archived name.
Path is compared with names already prepared to store in archive,
without drive letters and leading path separators. For example:

rar a -ep4texts\books archive c:\texts\books\technical

removes "text\books" from archived names, so they start
from 'technical'.

8. New -mes switch skips encrypted files when extracting or testing.

9. New -op<path> switch sets the destination folder for 'x' and 'e'
extraction commands. Unlike <path_to_extract\> command line parameter,
this switch also accepts paths without trailing path separator
character.

10. If 'p' command is used to print a file to stdout, informational
messages are suppressed automatically to prevent them mixing
with file data.

11. "Generate archive name by mask" option and switch -ag treat only
first two 'M' characters after 'H' as minutes. Previously any
amount of such characters was considered as minutes.

It makes possible to place the time field before the date,
like -agHHMM-DDMMYY. Previous versions considered all 'M'
in this string as minutes.

12. Maximum allowed size of RAR5 recovery record is increased to 1000%
of protected data size. Maximum number of RAR5 recovery volumes
can be 10 times larger than protected RAR volumes.

Previous WinRAR versions are not able to use the recovery record
to repair broken archives if recovery record size exceeds 99%.
Similarly, previous versions cannot use recovery volumes
if their number is equal or larger than number of RAR volumes.

13. Warning is issued if entered password exceeds the allowed limit
of 127 characters and is truncated. Previously such passwords
had been truncated silently.

14. If archive includes reserved device names, the underscore character
is inserted in the beginning of such names when extracting.
For example, aux.txt is converted to _aux.txt. It is done to prevent
compatibility problems with software unable to process such names.

You can use "Allow potentially incompatible names" option
in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog or command line -oni switch
to avoid this conversion.

15. WinRAR attempts to reset the file cache before testing an archive.
It helps to verify actual data written to disk instead of reading
a cached copy.

16. Multiple -v<size> switches specifying different sizes for different
volumes are now allowed also for ZIP archives:

WinRAR a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname.zip

Previously multiple -v<size> switches were supported only for
RAR archives.

17. Switches -sl<size> and -sm<size> can be used in WinRAR.exe command
line mode when extracting archives in any supported formats,
provided that such archive includes unpacked file sizes.
Previously these switches could filter files by size only in RAR
and ZIP archives.

18. Newer folder selection dialog is invoked when pressing "Browse" button
in WinRAR "Settings/Paths" page, "Repair" and "Convert" commands,
also as in few other similar places. Previously a simpler XP style
folder selection dialog was opened.

19. When restoring from tray after completing an operation,
WinRAR window is positioned under other opened windows,
to not interfere with current user activities.

20. "650 MB CD" is removed and "2 GB volumes" is added to the list of
predefined volume sizes in "Define volume sizes" dialog invoked
from WinRAR "Settings/Compression".

21. "Rename" command selects the file name part up to the final dot.
Previously it selected the entire name.

22. If SFX archive sizes exceeds 4 GB, an error message is issued
during compression, immediately after exceeding this threshold.
Previously this error was reported only after completing compression.

Executables of such size cannot be started by Windows.

23. Command line -en switch is not supported anymore.
It created RAR4 archives without the end of archive record.

End of archive record permits to gracefully skip external data
like digital signatures.

24. Bugs fixed:

a) when editing a file inside of .rar or .zip archive,
WinRAR created a new SFX archive instead of updating an existing
archive if "Create SFX archive" option was set in the default
compression profile;

b) the total progress could be displayed incorrectly when using
-oi, -f, -u switches or appropriate GUI options;

c) "Find files" command with "Use all tables" option and command line
"it" commands failed to find strings in UTF-16 encoding.

 

Do not use winrar! I am currenly testing which compression program out of 7zip winrar pkzip and winzip is best, and so far i've only tested html files but the results are horrible for winrar! So that makes me doubt it will be much better for other file types. And by horrible I mean, disastrously horrible (at least on the compression end, on the decompression one it's not the end of the world)

 

What do you mean disastrously horrible?

 

I'd need to see something more specific. I've been using WinRAR for 20 years without any complaints. I used to like WinZip before the license went from lifetime to an annual subscription.

 

I'm gonna post the results once I'm done. Will take a few days. That said, i've only tested html files so far, but the best winrar can archive a 1gb folder with html files is 285 mb. Meanwhile 7zip can do 0.6mb on the same folder

In fact, it was THIS very topic of why people still care about winrar that prompted me to do a test, and since i was on it I decided to include pkzip and winzip. Ofc I have nothing against winrar, but i could barely if at all find any tests so i decided to take it myself and compare the 4 programs. And turns out i was right, at least so far, winrar is garbage

 

dont mind him. at least his last postings contain a lot of nonsense.

 

Are you running the default compression settings or have you changed anything?

 

Bruh why dont u do the tests yourself u think im lying? I might just keep the results to myself as i honestly cannot be bothered to argue with people just because I cannot bother to record a video and then spend time editing it, i'm just recording the results for myself and then i thought i might as well post em here. Plus i'm testing on host machine so i don't wanna record that anyway.

 

I tried everything. I tried rar, rar4, zip, all "modes" like fastest fast normal etc. I tried changing Dictionary Size etc. Nothing gets below 285mb while 7zip with LZMA can get it to 0.6mb, LZMA2 can do 1.25mb

 

oh you're crazy. that's not possible. a ratio of 1:285? give me a break.

 

I usually do not get involved with such A vs B arguments, but since you mentioned that you could not find any compression tests for WinRAR, I wanted to add the below article that I had saved in my bookmarks. It is about a year or so old. The compression benchmark test was done by the creators of an archiving utility called PeaZip, and they included WinRaR, WinZip, 7-Zip and PeaZip in the test.

The settings used were what came out of the box for each utility and WinRAR did not do bad at all. In fact, if you keep the compression format same, each utility displayed more or less similar results. The newer compression formats do compress more, but take more time to compress, and they are not widely available, so the recipient will need to download the compressing utility to decompress the said archive.

Here is the article: Compression benchmark: 7-Zip, PeaZip, WinRar, WinZip comparison

Here is their verdict:

 

Gore warning! Do not watch this if you cannot handle it!

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/nagxaLR-RgM

 

the peazip test which i read yesterday.

indeed. RAR has advantage, also ZIP. each archiver has its own best feature. user has to chose time or compression. i know about winzip which is featured in business environments because of its support, but anything except ZIP is foreign. winrar has decent times using RAR, while 7zip featuring 7z format (sophisticated LZMA). For rar (standard settings) winrar is the fastest archiver with less impact on system performance. winrar respects several file formats /default) NOT to compact (eg. jpg or mp3/mp4) because those formats are already compacted.

thus that test his arrogant messages are simple to ignore. just another trolling attempt.

 

Maybe it's a zip bomb...

 

The truth is in front of u guys. If u choose to ignore it, that's up to you. In any case I will be doing more tests, unlike that article whose testing methodology is so flawed that i don't even know where to begin with explaining why it's bad. Primarily because there is 0 information about what files and files types and content was tested. It's like testing AVs on 1 sample, but u don't even know the sample as the end user. Which is why i'm gonna do lots of tests on different file types, mixed file types, even download huge games or movies from repacked releases just to simulate real life usage. My first test was just on one file type