How To: Open a Rar file
Someone has sent you a file in an email, and it's in Rar format. Or perhaps you downloaded a .Rar file from the Internet. How do you open a Rar file? What is a Rar file anyway?
What is a Rar file?
Rar files are compressed archives. The term "Archive" in this context means that the file may contain one or more files, or even folders, much like folders on your hard disk. "Compressed" means that mathematical techniques have been used to reduce the space needed to store the files, so that the size of the archive may be much smaller than the size of the files it contains.
In short, Rar files are a space-saving way of storing single files or groups of related files.
There are many different compression techniques in use today. "Rar" is a development of the Zip compression method. It uses more advanced compression algorithms that can create even smaller archives - typically 8 to 30 per cent smaller than Zip archives.
Other enhancements incorporated in the Rar format include redundancy, which can enable damaged archives to be repaired, and support for international character sets, which allows files with non-English filenames to be stored. For this last reason, Rar archives are popular in Russia and other countries.
Files in a Rar archive will decompress to exactly their original state. This is called "lossless compression." The compression methods used with JPG image files or MP3 music files are called "lossy compression" because some of the quality of the original image or sound is lost during the compression process.
Rar files are used because they take up less space to store, and take less time to send or download. They are also a very convenient way to package and send groups of related files. However, you can't run a program directly from a Rar file. The files must be extracted or unzipped from the archive before they can be used.
There is no built-in support for Rar archives in any version of Windows. In order to open a Rar file you will need to use third party software.
BitZipper
If you want to open Rar files, Tech-Pro.net recommends BitZipper. It's a very versatile, yet easy to use archive manager. It isn't designed primarily for working with Rar files, and it can open Zip files, Cab files and 17 other popular compressed and encoded file formats. It can create archives using most of these formats too, plus it's a fast and flexible backup tool.
BitZipper has a Wizard interface for novice users with no experience of working with compressed files, and a Classic interface (shown right) for more experienced users. BitZipper is a solid and stable application that can handle the largest archives without crashing.
WinRAR
If you need to be able to not only open, but also create Rar archives, then you'll need to buy WinRAR. The Rar compression algorithm is proprietary, so no other archive managers are able to provide full support for Rar archives.
WinRAR is an archive manager that specifically supports Rar archives, in addition to other formats such as Zip and Cab archives. It has a colourful user interface and a wizard that makes it easy to use for beginners.
WinRAR provides complete support for the Rar archive format. It can create Rar files as well as open them, it can repair corrupt Rar archives, verify the authenticity of Rar archives and create self-extracting Rar archives that can be opened by other Windows users who don't own a copy of WinRAR.
WinRAR runs on all versions of Windows. There are also command line versions for other platforms including MS-Dos, Linux, Mac OS X and OS/2.
