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Don't Use RAR

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Re: Don't Use RAR

#71

Post by Horba »

crispyambulance wrote: post #67

I've used winRAR for a long time because of the "self-extracting executable" feature. You can set it up to create an exe (instead of a rar) that extracts files to a particular location and then runs arbitrary commands. It's like a super simple ghetto-fabulous installer and it just works. Now I wonder what else can do that as easily in a windows environment? I haven't looked around because I haven't needed to but now…

You can have that with updates using Squirrel; https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#72

Post by mikl »

lifthrasiir wrote: post #60
mikl wrote: post #44

Good luck trying to send a file compressed with Zstd or Brotli to people and have them know what to do with them. I’d certainly have to google to figure out how to open one of those. And I’m an engineer and aware that those formats exist.

Zstandard and Brotli are also not an archiving format, which the layperson normally expects to be a "compression" format, so the comparison is a bit off. But that doesn't really matter because there is 7-zip which is an archiving format AND compression format AND competitive to RAR AND open-source.

Yeah, you’d need to use something like *nix `tar` to do the archiving part. I think newer versions of tar already have support for Zstd.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#73

Post by throwaway81523 »

nikanj wrote: post #46
ur-whale wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft ASF/WMA also has a similar limitation, Doesn't mean it would in court.

If you've got the resources to mount a credible legal defence against Microsoft

Microsoft ironically made its fortune by selling software that ran on IBM PC compatible x86 boxes, built around PC BIOS's that started from a clean room reimplementation of the reverse engineered IBM BIOS. IBM itself was not very significant in that market except at the very beginning. Clones for me, but not for thee.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#74

Post by [deleted] »

noAnswer wrote: post #50

RAR is a full-blown backup format* while 7zip is "just" an archive format. So comparisons are somewhat mood. But even I as a RAR fan and license holder have to agree. For the average joe, sending email attachments, zip or 7z is enough. * It can safe all three file timestamps (From nanoseconds precision (with NTFS), down to only 2 seconds precision (if you want to shave of a view bytes)), ACLs, ADS, Hard and Soft Link…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Use RAR

#75

Post by Calavar »

crispyambulance wrote: post #67

I've used winRAR for a long time because of the "self-extracting executable" feature. You can set it up to create an exe (instead of a rar) that extracts files to a particular location and then runs arbitrary commands. It's like a super simple ghetto-fabulous installer and it just works. Now I wonder what else can do that as easily in a windows environment? I haven't looked around because I haven't needed to but now…

Inno Setup (https://jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php). Probably not quite as easy as WinRAR, but close. It comes with an IDE with a point and click wizard for simple installers (i.e. just copy files from A to B).

Re: Don't Use RAR

#77

Post by lifthrasiir »

Ayesh wrote: post #58

I strongly prefer WinRAR (the software) because it does everything I am looking for in an archiving and compressing software. - It is a great tool for archiving. Especially in Windows, it is often faster to compress a rar archive than copying several hundreds of files. This fills the lack of a `tar` tool in Windows space. - It supports changing the compression level during the compression. - Highly backwards compatib…

I avoid any proprietary data compression software because they tend to try to lock you in their own file formats. Not just WinRAR, I've seen such attempts at least twice just in my own country (South Korea). I don't want to take a risk that I can't (freely) open my own archive later; I'm aware the risk would be much smaller for WinRAR, but that's still unacceptable for me.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#78

Post by lifthrasiir »

ramraj07 wrote: post #69
lifthrasiir wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zstandard and Brotli are also not an archiving format, which the layperson normally expects to be a "compression" format, so the comparison is a bit off. But that doesn't really matter because there is 7-zip which is an archiving format AND compression format AND competitive to RAR AND open-source.

But slower.

It depends on which time you measure. 7zip's LZMA2 is, like most LZ algorithms, asymmetric that it is quite fast to decompress no matter how much you spend on the compression. By comparison RAR uses PPM in the highest setting, which is more or less symmetric so the compression and decompression takes about the same amount of time. When the target ratio is roughly same and high enough, LZMA2 is indeed slower than (RAR's implementation of) PPM for the compression but much faster for the decompression.

Re: Don't Use RAR

#79

Post by Tajnymag »

Ayesh wrote: post #58

I strongly prefer WinRAR (the software) because it does everything I am looking for in an archiving and compressing software. - It is a great tool for archiving. Especially in Windows, it is often faster to compress a rar archive than copying several hundreds of files. This fills the lack of a `tar` tool in Windows space. - It supports changing the compression level during the compression. - Highly backwards compatib…

Most of these, if no all, is covered by 7-zip.
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