So it all depends on what you want to do If you want to compress files in automatic workflows with a high intensity, RAR is probably not the best choice But for a personal usage, if the receiver can read RAR files, it’s probably the best optionīut generally, the difference is minimal, and the choice is rather made depending on the receiver possibilities As ZIP is available on any computer, we often prefer to use it to be sure anyone can open it and get the files correctly Without taking the risk to send a RAR file that someone may not be able to open Other formats
You’ll need more times to compress the same files with RAR than with ZIP The overall performances of the RAR format are better than the ZIP format, no matter what kind of files you want to compress According to some studies, it can even generate files two times lighter than the ZIP equivalent, when compressing HTML or WAV filesīut RAR is slower to compress.
Unlike the ZIP file format, RAR is a proprietary format So you need a software to use it, operating systems can’t read them without this softwareįor example, you can download WinRAR on Windows WinRAR is probably also available on macOS On Linux, rar and unrar commands are available in the non-free repositories of your distribution (install them with your favorite packages manager) Performances The RAR file format was invented in 1993 by Eugen Roshal (Russia) Usage You are limited to 2G WinRAR allows you yo split this big 5G file in 3 smaller files Origins If you want to send a 5G file with WeTransfer (a website to send big files on Internet), it’s not possible. Which constraints? At the time, the limit was the storage supports (CD, DVD, etc.) But today you can also have this kind of issue.
To make it simpler for non-techies, RAR is basically similar to ZIP It allows you to archive and compress files into one big fileīut it adds an exclusive feature, it also allows you to create an archive in multiple files What’s the goal of compression multiple files into multiples files? ? This will free yourself from certain constraints No big news in this definition, the only interesting thing is the “file spanning” RAR is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error recovery and file spanning Wikipedia
A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression.
How To Extract RAR Files on Windows 10 ZIP format DefinitionĪs it’s not (yet) in the dictionary, I will quote the Wikipedia definition here: