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Don't Use RAR

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Re: Don't Use RAR

#21

Post by exmadscientist »

rcarmo wrote: post #14

There was a time when RAR was extremely popular because it dealt very well with splitting things across multiple diskette-sized archives, and because it edged out PKZIP in compression. Regardless of its origins and... "traditional" use, these days it has zero relevance given that Windows and MacOS (as well as some Linux file managers) allow you to handle zip files without any additional software - and also because ma…

RAR is still the only format that has PAR2 (?) recovery records trivially available. So it's still the best for long-term archiving.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#22

Post by Nextgrid »

steerablesafe wrote: post #8

> There is an unofficial unrar that is free and open-source software, but there is no free and open-source rar as creating one is prohibited by the RAR license. From the license (EULA), I assume this is the relevant part: > You may not use, copy, emulate, clone, rent, lease, sell, modify, decompile, disassemble, otherwise reverse engineer, or transfer the licensed software, or any subset of the licensed software, exc…

> it's probably not binding for reverse engineering based on the open source unrar.

I think the "secret sauce" is the compression-specific code that allows it to reach the high compression ratio which is one of the selling points of the format. Reverse-engineering the decompression code will allow you to create valid RAR files but may not give you any clues as to how to reach the high compression ratio of the original compressor.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#23

Post by tropin »

anonu wrote: post #11

The sightly better file compression with rar is still interesting. But I suppose with today's compute when you think about the time vs space trade-off, time is more important. Space is cheap.

Is not just "slightly better" in some cases. An obvious one is repeated files. If RAR encounters a file ten times, it will compress once and store it and nine pointers. lzma and zstd guis i've tested will store ten compressed copies. It happens all the time in backups.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#26

Post by ismayilzadan »

rvz wrote: post #18
darkhorn wrote: post #7

Quoted post unavailable.

and? Everyone is using nginx and that was made by a Russian, does that mean we should stop using it? This is why 'guilt by association' doesn't work with your 'point' .

What if the parent comment mentioned this instead:

Also WinRAR is a closed source Russian software.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#29

Post by mrsaint »

I tried Peazip for Linux but it didn't quite work for me. I remember it as kinda buggy, and anyhow, it works like a Gui wrapper that uses external console binaries to perform actual compression/decompression tasks rather than having the routines built-in.

Regarding zstd: I would love to use it cross-platform, but zstd for Windows is still kinda exotic, and yes, it misses proper Gui applications. Now, if Winrar would support zstd... :P :P

Re: Don't Use RAR

#30

Post by ihateolives »

exmadscientist wrote: post #21
rcarmo wrote: post #14

There was a time when RAR was extremely popular because it dealt very well with splitting things across multiple diskette-sized archives, and because it edged out PKZIP in compression. Regardless of its origins and... "traditional" use, these days it has zero relevance given that Windows and MacOS (as well as some Linux file managers) allow you to handle zip files without any additional software - and also because ma…

RAR is still the only format that has PAR2 (?) recovery records trivially available. So it's still the best for long-term archiving.

Yeah, I don't know why this is never mentioned in comparisons. This is nice to have feature. I wouldn't care at all about speed for long term archiving, because it's one time occurrence, but I would care whether archive format has extra safety feature against bit rot.
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