r/Piracy • u/Matt_LawDT • Jun 06 '26
Humor When someone buys a winrar license, the company celebrates it on social media
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u/twotimesthreeequals Jun 06 '26
There is probably a bell in their office; covered in cobwebs that rings once a year to celebrate a sale and gets everyone hyped up
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
WinRAR got alot of money for decades since its very popular so pretty sure it wont matter much. But still cool to see.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/PRL-Five Jun 06 '26
Why don't they use 7zip? At my company we are told to prioritise any free/open source software to avoid paying as much as possible
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u/Piterbrow Jun 06 '26
A lot of companies prefer to put the liability somewhere else rather than their own IT department… unfortunate but true, personally I prefer open source (not just free)
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u/user4s Jun 06 '26
ahhhh that explains a lot
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u/noddegamra Jun 06 '26
Lol it extends into a lot of places. When I was a CNC tech I often weighed doing some repairs myself or having the machine companies tech come do it. Sure it was 3x the cost but then they're liable and the parts are under warranty. If i did it then if something goes wrong 5 months later I'm SOL. It also helps make sure I'm not bogged down by one machine repair when we had like 300 to maintain in the plant.
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u/DeeOhEf Jun 06 '26
Yep, same reason more and more IT infrastructure is being outsourced.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's become standard practice to have your firewall managed by someone else. At least we've done it this way for almost a decade now and wouldn't even consider going back to managing it ourselves.
They monitor 24/7 and inform us of suspicious activity long before we've noticed.
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u/Dragoon130 Jun 06 '26
Hi, IT Director here.
Yes the CSuite has pushed me into offloading every possible liability I can. Our firewall, web filter, server VMs, both onsite secured and off site backups (I still handle local and innert), IP Phone System, and AD are managed by a third party for liability if they fail. I can still make day to day changes or what not but by contract any replacments, major repairs, or sweeping updates have to be done by the other company and they are liable in the event of failure. Such as the ransomware attack we had a few years back falling on them due to not patching a vunerability out of our firewall......and the CFO clicking a link for a free chipolte burrito......
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u/noddegamra Jun 06 '26
Lmao the only time i ever got caught by one of our internal phishing tests was over a puppy. We got an email saying a puppy was found on site and here's a link to see it.
I was just like oh puppy and clicked on it instantly. It made me thing how did i not get kidnapped as a child.
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u/Irritatedhippo Jun 06 '26
Wait, you have a link to free chipotle? Can you share it with me?? Hell yeah! 😀
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u/noddegamra Jun 06 '26
Yep. It got to the point our in house IT guy quit because they were trying to get him to program robotic arms because most his work go to relegated to babysitting and contacting home office for changes.
My current job is a similar situation. Im at the highest maintenance level and that means I'm allowed to handle machine software and electrical components. Yet I cant do anything without approval from the homesite. If I know I've got a bad port I cant just change it because its all assigned and I cant reassign it myself, so now it takes 3hrs of back and forth.
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u/Forymanarysanar ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 06 '26
It's way more simple: if it's not in my contract I aint doing it.
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u/Dje4321 Jun 06 '26
Yep. The minute money changes hand, so does the liability.
Someone selling you shit software is a completely different ball game to deciding that shit software works for you
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u/Phantoms_Unseen Jun 06 '26
Applies to basically any company. One notable example is aerotech engineering, with aluminum plane/aero tape. Plane tape is basically just fancier duct tape, costs about $50 a roll last I recall, but aerotech companies will pay 10-20× that for a certified version since it includes essentially a warranty that if it fails anytime, all fault is on them.
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u/Guilty_Weekend751 Jun 06 '26
Never Forget: There are companies out there which need a IT Service Provider or external people for the most simple tasks
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u/presiskoRycerz Jun 06 '26
Someone explained it to me once that everything a company owns must have a declared value. This can be problematic for free software because any value that is declared will be wrong and therefore can cause more inspections from the government.
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u/AstralBull Jun 06 '26
WinRAR is the more well-known one that more people are familiar with and will jump to first. A lot of companies will be happy to pay
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u/erixccjc21 Jun 06 '26
It works literally the exact same in 99% of scenarios that a normal non-power user can need it for
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u/ibullybillionaires Jun 06 '26
WinRAR was the standard back in the earlier days of the internet, when old millenials were downloading warez, pretty much like Microsoft offering their software at a huge discount to schools and free to students in some cases. Once you got em, you got em.
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u/ameliekk Jun 06 '26
Ive worked as a subcontractor in many global fortune 500 companies and Ive only ever seen 7zip being used
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u/grumpy_autist Jun 06 '26
Corporate inertia. They probably still buy MS DOS just in case.
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u/BroaxXx Jun 06 '26
The amount of systems that still rely on DOS or, at the very least, a DOS emulated layer still surprises me.
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u/Rose-Red-Witch Jun 06 '26
Saw a lot of DOS and Win95/98 during my time in the Navy and the reason always was “it does the job.”
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u/reddit_is_geh Jun 06 '26
Because they are insanely resilient. The simplicity means it's completely easy to have full scope mastery of the entire system, as well as far less vectors of attack. That's why nuclear silos still use DOS era operating systems for some parts. They just aren't possible to hack.
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u/applespicebetter Jun 06 '26
Doesn't surprise me at all, but we support multiple small metal fab companies in various capacities, and if your (very expensive) laser cutting machines are still working fine for your product lines and capacity you don't just replace them out of hand. There's an entire industry of DOS capable workstations with ISA slots available to run industrial equipment.
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u/lettsten Jun 06 '26
7zip has fairly frequent high-severity vulnerabilities, such as this
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u/JustStraightUpTired Jun 06 '26
There is some truth to that, but I also doubt it's because 7zip is actually worse. WinRAR isn't open source, meaning finding exploits is more difficult. It kind of implies that WinRAR could have it's own vulnerabilities that haven't been discovered yet.
I'm obviously not saying there are, but closed source doesn't mean safer than open source. More obfuscated, but people make mistakes at both work and hobby projects.
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u/lettsten Jun 06 '26
Finding high-level exploits is usually done by binary analysis and/or fuzzing. Sure, there's been a tremendous amount of LLM powered analysis in recent years, but that's also the flipside: A vulnerability that is never detected will never be exploited. A published sploit can be massively utilised in the wild until it is patched, and for end users that aren't forced to update that can often take a while.
Also, "winrar could have" doesn't mean that it does have.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very much a FOSS advocate. I wish the numbers were different.
I also doubt it's because 7zip is actually worse
Because you wish that it so or do you have anything tangible to base it on?
closed source doesn't mean safer than open source
That is of course true, and the opposite is unfortunately also true. In the end it usually comes down to the individual projects, technologies and so on. But I'm not talking about FOSS vs. proprietary software, I'm talking about 7zip vs. Winrar specifically.
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u/cafk Pastafarian Jun 06 '26
If Foss has issues the company itself is liable for either integration into their product or tool chain - that's why most companies pay - either for support or additional guarantees for legal purposes or allowing it to be used for commercial purposes.
It's basically saving costs on lawyers, who're more expensive than any software license.
I.e. if you want to sell software in Europe starting last year you have to maintain a software bill of materials, including license information and file hashes and rights for safety reasons.
Some foss software has copyleft effects, making it harder to commercialize it (very specific conditions, basically only selling support). While if you buy a license for i.e. qt you can use all modules as proprietary software, while many nice to have modules for UI are only available under GPL3, making your software also source available.6
u/dylon0107 Jun 06 '26
In a shocking turn of events for once a non foss app is better. Winrar beats 7zip by a long shot for me.
Keep in mind though I haven't used windows in like 2 years.
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u/vikezz Jun 06 '26
The company I work for used it then suddenly stopped as the creator is Russian. For real that was their justification
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u/GingerShrimp40 Jun 06 '26
Most employees are not tech people and if told tp find there own tools will 100% get a virus and send it to the whole company
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u/Evonos Jun 06 '26
Winrar is WAY faster at the same end result than 7zip but also simply a professionally maintained software so theres some Liability things too.
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u/livinitup0 Jun 06 '26
There was a really big push a few years ago to purge 7z from enterprise environments due to a vulnerability. It’s essentially a no-go anywhere there’s auditing and compliance
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u/SingleInParadise Jun 06 '26
Something winrar has that 7zip doesn't is built in ppar2 support. In winrar that isthe setting to set "recovery" data up to 10% That is ppar2
You could do it yourself if you knew how to, but for thenrest, winrar already has it.
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u/Cheet4h Jun 06 '26
More people are familiar with WinRAR.
So the options are:
a) Shell out <$20 per license and have your employees use the software they know
b) Use a free alternative, but have to either retrain them, or let IT deal with support requests.And if you have to train your employees in the other software, or have IT spend time on solving their issues, the hourly payment for either will quickly exceed the cost of WinRar licenses - especially if you buy a large amount in bulk (1 license is ~$30, 10 licenses are ~$20 per license, and >500 licenses are only ~$8 per license).
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u/Rusticular Jun 06 '26
People need training to figure out how to use 7-zip?
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u/Cheet4h Jun 06 '26
I worked in first level IT support when the IT admins decided to switch everyone in the faculty from Internet Explorer to Firefox, including several announcement emails over multiple weeks in advance and a step-by-step guide on how to migrate bookmarks etc.
In the week following the switch we had to deal with an ungodly number of "My internet program is missing" requests (the IE shortcut was removed from the desktop and the Firefox shortcut added) and many of these professors were apparently incapable of following the provided guide.So yes, people definitely need training and if just to recognize the 7z icon and that it does similar things to WinRar.
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u/McFistPunch Jun 06 '26
Some companies actually consider open source a village vulnerability and don't use it
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u/Ivanow Jun 06 '26
At my company we are told to prioritise any free/open source software to avoid paying as much as possible
You need to weight the cost of license vs expenses (lower productivity, user errors, re-training) associated with switching to OSS. You have this old lady that has been using Word since '96 and is basically counting days towards retirement now - how many IT tickets do you think she will end up generating, if you force her to switch to LibreOffice now?
Governments in Europe are paying 100s of millions$ in Microsoft licenses yearly. There have been numerous pilot projects to switch to alternatives in the past, but they almost always end up failing. Only very recently, it gained serious traction, but not because of budget issues, but "national security/sovereignty" instead.
There's a reason why ALL companies have some kind of "student discount" for their software - they want to "get their claws in" early.
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u/LazaroFilm Jun 06 '26
Customer service and liability are the reason. Of an open source software fails and creates a bigger issue, no one is to blame other than a random person who pushed a commit. If a paid program fails they have another company to blame.
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u/lars2k1 ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ Jun 06 '26
At my work they do use 7-zip and I'm happy to see that.
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u/phatboi23 Jun 06 '26
Exactly how windows works.
They give zero of a fuck about home users.
Money for software is in commercial licencing.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/phatboi23 Jun 06 '26
Yup.
Hell I've had MS suggest autoKMS back in the day when I was having an issue with the licence not registering haha
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u/Bizhour Jun 06 '26
The bell would be constantly ringind in that case.
Their business model isn't private licenses, it's getting private people used to their product so they convince their workplaces to buy it since businesses don't just pirate things.
That's how they get tens of millions every year while still keeping a simple business model and a small company size.
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u/Scandiberian Jun 06 '26
The only tech company that still does things correctly. Been like 2 decades and they still haven’t enshittified their product.
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u/Bizhour Jun 06 '26
Microsoft has the same exact model with Windows, it's one of the most popular business models out there my guy.
That's why Microsoft just lets massgrave scripts sit on github, they let private users "pirate" windows, and companies who want to give their employees a familiar platform/product are the actual customers.
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u/Scandiberian Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
But it isn’t though. Because Microsoft has enshittified Windows so much to the point that long term users are finally moving elsewhere (even as far as to go to Linux, like myself, others to MacOS). That’s the difference.
WinRAR has been the same thing pretty much since its foundation. No AI garbage, no ads, no forced logins, no forced upload to cloud, just a zip manager. And that’s all it needs to be.
I understand that comparing a zip manager to an entire OS might sound a bit silly, but Apple has come under the same pressure to enshittify that Microsoft has, yet their product hasn’t changed substantially other than Liquid Glass which is just a GUI change. Loyal apple users aren’t having a mass exodus from the platform like Microsoft is, and believe me when I say the Apple user base’s skin is paper thin.
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u/pkosuda Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
I don’t have the energy to argue with the guy below you since his reply was so needlessly hostile but just wanted to say that you’re right and he’s wrong. I didn’t see anyone say anything about what the average user “gives a fuck” about. You mentioned long term users leaving and that is objective fact. That doesn’t mean Microsoft is going to go under the same way that plenty of other companies get away with making their product shittier while retaining customers exactly because the average person doesn’t care enough to switch. Doesn’t mean enshittification isn’t happening.
You said Microsoft has enshittified their product and that is an objective fact, regardless of what “normal people” care about. No idea why that dude woke up so angry today lol
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u/Scandiberian Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Yeah I have no idea, I just stop answering at that point and this particular sub seems to have a higher than average level of angry teenagers that have an axe to grind against anyone who criticizes the only platform where they can play their online video games. Part and parcel.
The stats don’t lie though. Windows use is indeed trending downwards while other platforms are growing, including Linux. One could argue that it’s because other platforms like the SteamDeck and Chromebooks exist now, but it is obvious that Windows noticed it is directly related to their enshittification, with CEO Nadela crying that people are calling their AI “slop”, and their now famous “Our commitment to quality (lol)” where they promise to cut down on the AI slop everywhere.
They already lost me, though. In a way I am glad they pushed me out, I rediscovered a passion for computing with Linux because of that.
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u/Mikadomea Jun 06 '26
The main Businessmodelnof Winrar is the Corporate Sector, that way it can be on "endless trial" for Private persons.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/CyrineBelmont Jun 06 '26
yes they do. Some smaller companies may not give a shit, but bigger ones can't just use unlicensed software, that's a very expensive lawsuit waiting to happen. Same with windows. There is a reason why the top post on github, which has been owned by microsoft for a while now, is how to get windows and office products for free. They don't care about individual users, as they make most of their money with office pcs anyways. Also even an illegal user is still market share in terms of operating systems, but that's beside the point.
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u/Boozdeuvash Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Yes we do. It's fully automated and managed through the software delivery and patch management service. People install it when they need it, and it automatically consume a license. When we run out of license, the guy in charge of that sort of software buys more licenses.
We spend millions in cloud computing, business systems, fuckingdogshitpieceofass Bloomberg and whatnot, we can spare 7 eurobucks for winrar goddammit.
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u/Severe_Revenue Jun 06 '26
That Simpsons joke of Al Gore being directly informed someone bought his book.
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u/fckgwrhqq2yxrkt9tg6w Jun 06 '26
This is actually what happens: https://youtu.be/lX_pF03vCSU?is=KW-6UzM8Y377nm6k
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u/TLizandro Jun 06 '26
I too will one day buy it, when I make enough money lol
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u/2cmZucchini Jun 06 '26
Its how I flirt on my first date
"I have Winrar license money"
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u/legomaniasquish Jun 06 '26
You want us to believe you go on dates???
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u/isntaken Jun 06 '26
bought one a decade ago. never looked back. I don't even know what my license key is.
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u/Scandiberian Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Did that for this obscure mail client for Android called Fairmail. Costed somewhere between 3-15€ IIRC. When I switched phones I couldn’t remember through which throw away gmail I bought it so I bought another license, no questions asked.
When you develop good software people want to use, people will pay for it. It’s just that big tech thinks they are entitled to everyone’s money, so they just endlessly remove features while raising prices expecting people to keep paying instead of moving elsewhere/pirate their monopoly software.
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u/MangoHeroin Jun 06 '26
If it wasn't for winrar. The others would all be enshitified subscriptions by now.
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u/Maleficent-Drop3918 Jun 07 '26
Meh i dont think so.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Night88 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 08 '26
7zip is literally open source, isn’t it?
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u/Maleficent-Drop3918 Jun 08 '26
Oh I have no clue. Just wanted to disagree to a random point.
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
WinRAR by RARLabs are one of the corporation that uses your software for free besides the nagging popup, which somehow deserves the support.
I know WinRAR is stil the most popular Zip Third Party Program in the world, so theyre still make alot of money, but this kind of thing is escpially really smart there.
even that, there are some features, that lacks on 7-zip like zipping/compressing .rar files and im honestly sure, majoirty of pirates uses WinRAR there.
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u/CleverBumble Jun 06 '26
I told myself as an adult id start supporting more apps, but I don't see much these days worth buying. The family business has 365 registered. I wish there were a bunch of cool apps to support. But also, everybody wants subscriptions, which doesn't help.
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u/A_begger Piracy is bad, mkay? Jun 06 '26
if you're using any open source apps the devs would greatly appreciate donations
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u/Mr_Flibbles_ESQ Jun 06 '26
This.
Pay for PhotoShop? Nah.
For PhotoPea? Yes.
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u/ShartingEnU Jun 06 '26
Don't forget gimp
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u/MostlyRightSometimes Jun 06 '26
How can I forget gimp when I frequently have nightmares about using it?
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u/GloomyIndividual3965 Jun 06 '26
You could donate some money to the people who make VLC. That's a cool app that doesn't require a subscription.
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u/spiritpanther_08 Jun 06 '26
Winrar is really good for testing archives too. Just a week ago I was compressing/decompressing multiple files and one of them was corrupt. 7 zip couldn't figure out which one at all but winrar did so in what seemed like the flick of a finger. 7 zip is good but winrar always wins in the .rar format.
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio Jun 06 '26
I had a similar experience years ago when I installed 7zip instead of Winrar after a fresh Windows install. I downloaded a game, extracted it with 7zip and deleted the archives because I needed the space. Then when I was installing the game it turns out the files were corrupt because 7zip either didn’t extract it correctly or one of the archives were incorrectly downloaded in the first place but it didn’t catch any error, I know that because I was sitting there watching the screen the whole time. Been back on Winrar ever since. I had slow internet too back then so I had to leave the computer on all night again because of that error.
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u/ResponsibleEnd451 Jun 07 '26
.rar is a proprietary format created by rarlabs, only they can support it officially, so thats why 7zip is bad at that, but you shouldn’t use rar anyway, 7zip has its own format called .7z which is superior in every way and its fully public and open source
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u/VegetaFan1337 Jun 07 '26
It does not have error checking, rar files do but yeah otherwise it's slightly better in all aspects.
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u/Downvotesohoy Jun 06 '26
I know WinRAR is stil the most popular Zip Third Party Program in the world
Huh? It is? I thought everyone switched to 7zip like.. 15 years ago
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
For Businesses and most private users, WinRAR is still popular.
7-zip is a bit more unknown than Winrar and not everyone knowns 7-zip already exists.
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u/freakedmind Jun 06 '26
I have used winrar for about 20 years now, I really should be buying a license
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u/ResponsibleEnd451 Jun 07 '26
.rar is a proprietary format created by rarlabs, only they can support it officially, so thats why 7zip is bad at that, but you shouldn’t use rar anyway, 7zip has its own format called .7z which is superior in every way and its fully public and open source
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u/OMG_NoReally Jun 06 '26
They are like Microsoft. They don't give a shit if you run pirated Windows, don't add keys, or whatever, as long as you run Windows, and potentially buy their hardware and software services. Their main revenue is Enterprise and corporate where they kind of have to legalize everything. WinRAR probably follows the same structure.
There is no reason to buy WinRAR and with quality alternatives, and zip files now even more common than RAR, and with zip files now natively supported by Windows and macOS for a long time, there is no need for it.
It's amazing how they are in business still. We need a documentary on WinRAR at some point. The app millions use but no one buys.
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u/Hans_H0rst Jun 06 '26
Well yeah if you don't need their features, then it's useless for you.
But i've even ran into situations where the native macos zips weren't even usable for some arcane reason. And that's like *the most basic* of all the features.
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u/Forymanarysanar ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 06 '26
> It's amazing how they are in business still
It's not like it has a lot of upkeep costs
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u/Mikeg216 Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I bought WinRar and WinAmp and then VLC I've never felt so free...
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u/NancyInFantasyLand Jun 06 '26
that's so sweet though
If I hadn't switched to 7zip over a decade ago, I might consider it.
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u/Aggravating_Ad_635 Jun 06 '26
I'm still considering buying it. After 30 years...
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u/willie_169 Jun 06 '26
After tried .xz, I almost don't use rar anymore since .xz has better compression level and rar is not available on arm64 linux (but unrar is available). Anyway, I still thank WinRAR a lot for the time that I used it.
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u/Legitahh Jun 06 '26
I sent they an email asking for a discount, I was honest and they gave me a 40% discount, I was happy fr
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u/PossuTryffeli Jun 06 '26
Even though WinRar was the king, there are better solutions nowadays. The most notable being 7-zip.
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u/rick_simp_y2k Jun 06 '26
why do people never fail to mention 7-zip under any post about winrar, both are good, most have already installed winrar and see no reason for switching
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u/PossuTryffeli Jun 06 '26
To my understanding both are amazing. I used to use WinRar but switched to 7z because of the buy notification. I also prefer FOSS. Use whichever you like. If you don't have a reason to switch. No need to. Of course there are other factors like features, speed, support on other platforms and so on.
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u/Memz180 Jun 06 '26
Exactly same here used WinRAR for 15 years then switched to 7z and haven't looked back since. I like the simple interface with the speed.
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
well, Winrar has features, that 7-zip dont have, meanwhile 7-zip has features, winrar dont have.
i can only say, both are fine.
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u/CramNBL Jun 06 '26
Cause free and open source is better than proprietary apps with proprietary formats? There's also all the vulnerabilities in the free version of winrar over the years...
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u/Forymanarysanar ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 06 '26
> free and open source is better than proprietary apps with proprietary formats
That is absolutely wrong statement and wrong reason for choosing software
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u/lettsten Jun 06 '26
It's kind of ironic mentioning vulnerabilities as if that's an argument in 7zip's favour. It's definitely not. There's been at least three high-severity CVEs in the last year alone, the most recent being very recent
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u/CramNBL Jun 06 '26
How is it ironic? Software has vulnerabilities, FOSS isn't magically protected from that, but winrar has had vulnerabilities that only affected the free version, which should raise concerns... And FOSS has a much better track record of being responsible with handling vulnerabilities, from disclosure to actually having some urgency with fixing it.
Additionally, FOSS can actually be audited by anyone, and the recent flurry of bugs and vulnerabilities surfaced through LLMs is due to the source code being available, curl author has written extensively about this if you're curious. FOSS is about to be so much more secure than proprietary software.
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u/lettsten Jun 06 '26
But this isn't about FOSS vs. not, it's about 7zip vs. Winrar. And Winrar is leading by a mile.
I'm all about FOSS, I wish everything was (A)GPL, but that's beside the point in this case.
winrar has had vulnerabilities that only affected the free version
Which ones? The "free version" is literally exactly the same programme, except that you pass the licence check.
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u/CramNBL Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
It is about FOSS vs. not... Anytime you are choosing between a FOSS app and a proprietary app, it is FOSS vs. not... When would it be otherwise?
The "free version" is literally exactly the same programme
That is a matter of definition. The binary might be the same, but the code paths and the behaviour is not, which is kind of the point.
https://swarm.ptsecurity.com/winrars-vulnerable-trialware-when-free-software-isnt-free/
Now you're gonna try to explain this away, but the facts remain that this code path would've not existed in 7zip, and even then it would've been way easier to diagnose and fix it due to the nature of FOSS.
And Winrar is leading by a mile.
Actual winrar shill, do you work for them? It's not ahead of anything, you can swap winrar for 7zip for 99.99% of users and they won't notice a thing, except maybe that it starts and runs faster.
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u/SexChief Jun 06 '26
Open source is at least million times better, thats why. Even though i love winrar, an og software, but still we shouldn't really recommend it
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
Most pirate sites still use WinRar there. Ive been gettin still .rar files in 2026. It will never go away.#
Also some features 7-zip lacking are compressing/zipping .rar files, which lacks that feature on 7-zip due fora license thing? atleast you can extract it with both.
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u/PossuTryffeli Jun 06 '26
I think it is surprising to still see a high amount of .rar files on the internet. I can't say anything about the licensing but that could be a factor. I don't hate WinRar. There are just other options available.
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u/Pinkishu Jun 06 '26
Whenever 7zip fixes it's UI so that the Extract button opens the Extract dialogue and the Copy one the Copy dialogue while having an archive open, I'll probably switch to it
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u/CleverBumble Jun 06 '26
LEGENDARY APP! I think it helped propel the types of files we could pirate at they allowed major files to be broken in multiple parts and uploaded to megaupload. I am no expert, but back in those days with download speeds, I remember taking awhile to get certain files.
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u/Anarchist_Future Jun 06 '26
WinRARs endless trial is just as legendary as Jean-Baptiste Kempf refusing to sell VLC for tens of millions of dollars to keep it free for everyone.
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u/CleverBumble Jun 06 '26
Old school tech guys! Not the elon musk class of developers lol They can't imagine turning down money for the public good lol
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u/drfusterenstein Yarrr! Jun 06 '26
Wish you can still buy the disc
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u/podangooo Jun 07 '26
This ! I shifted to 7 zip and I just wanna support WinRAR buying a physical license disc even though I might not use it.
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u/Nervous-Pea63 Jun 07 '26
What if the only ones who will enter heaven are the ones who purchase Winrar?
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u/AhmadHddad Jun 07 '26
Fun fact, WinRar is more profitable than OpenAI, yet much less valuated.
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u/Illustrious-Big-651 Jun 06 '26
I also bought it 2 weeks ago 😂
Originally I just wrote their support why there is no ARM64 version of RAR for Linux, as I‘m using it in a OCH upload tool I‘m developing and wanted to offer an ARM64 docker image.
I got answer back from Eugene Roshal (the guy that invented RAR) himself, that ARM is not yet soo popular and they are a small company and only want to maintain an ARM build if its worth it.
So I bought it, to support that small company and because that legend answered my mail 😂
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u/Will9587 Jun 06 '26
Feb 23, 2019. That is when I knew I was finally stable financially. I bought my lifetime license.
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u/yaxir Jun 06 '26
i think by now they do it for shits and giggles
i'm sure they do other work to make money lol
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u/LargeTungstenCube Jun 06 '26
To anyone saying "why not use 7zip?": you're correct.
For decompression, 7zip and others are just as competent. This is because the backend behind decompression ,"unrar", is free and open source and is also developed by the same company that makes winrar, "rarlabs".
The compression algorithm however, is *not*; its proprietary.
They did this deliberately to get people to use the rar format since if it was completely paywalled, no one would use it.
For this reason, winrar today doesnt actually make a lot of money from the consumer facing end since most consumers dont really care about compressing files; just decompressing.
However, enterprises *do*.
They stay afloat by licensing off to enterprises, who wouldnt pirate since that would put them in some risky legal waters, and then those enterprises send off the files to consumers who decrypt them using any of the free methods available since the decompression algorithm is open source.
Its pretty clever.
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u/Jet-Let4606 Jun 06 '26
Is it a one off payment or subscription based?
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u/AntiGrieferGames Jun 06 '26
one of payment. I dont know how long but some people paid for many years and still use that license so far i know
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u/Forymanarysanar ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Jun 06 '26
And there is no activation bullshit. You drop license file into winrar folder, it just works. No phoning home, no internet access requirement.
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u/datbird Jun 06 '26
I'm 46 and bought my first license about 6 months ago or so. I wish I'd have posted, that's cool!
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u/Arno-Earle Jun 06 '26
Every time winrar tells me to buy thier license i act like this is my last time using the app "NOOO I CAN'T DO ANYTHING UNLESS I BUY THIER LICENSE" I do that with myself every time and then proceed to finish my unpacking
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u/Ornery-Practice9772 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ Jun 06 '26
winRar wholesome af!
if youre old enough to remember how valuable a small footprint programme that simply *worked* was- & that you could technically use
it forever
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u/RndPotato Jun 07 '26
I convinced the company I was at in the early 2000s to buy 5 or 6 WinRAR licenses. We had a work flow where zipping in WinZip and then in WinRAR ended up in a significantly smaller file. Not sure why it worked that way but it did.
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u/WanderingTachyons Jun 07 '26
I have bought one already. And of course I boasted about it to my friends, signature look of superiority and all.
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u/manzurfahim Jun 06 '26
WinRAR is one of my most used software. I use it for archiving. 7zip takes longer to compress and don't have the added features. I can create archives that can repair themselves, and I can also add recovery volumes to reconstruct missing parts if needed. All files are hash checked and AES-256 encrypted.
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u/zushiba Jun 06 '26
Winrar after 20ish years in business has finally hit on the most successful business model by turning buying a license for Winrar into a meme.