RAR files have several advantages over Zip files, and WinRAR is a powerful program for handling them. Creating a RAR file takes longer, but the compression is significantly better. An 870KB file compressed as a Zip reduces to 843KB, yet compressing as a RAR lowers it to a tiny 460KB.

The RAR format also supports multi-volume compression, allowing the splitting of a large file. A recovery record feature allows corrupt files to be accessed in order to salvage damaged data.

Files can be locked to prevent accidental tampering, and files of up to a massive 8,589,934,591GB can be handled compared to 4GB for a Zip file.

The Wizards that are included will help beginners create and unpack files, while advanced users have access to loads of features, such as the importing/exporting of file settings, file protection and archive conversion to SFX.

WinRAR also supports all the other common compression formats (RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip).