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General discussionWhy is WinRAR so expensive?(161 posts)(161 posts)
(161 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 06, 2015
Because I honestly got 7Zip and never looked back. Why pay for expensive commercial software when one or more people make a superior product for free? If I had the money, I'd throw my support at so many F/OSS projects.
Posted September 06, 2015
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stryx: I still use ARJ. ;-)

The only difference that I'm aware of is that you don't have to close that 'buy me' window.
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bigpap: Only that? The developer really is generous though despite the hefty pricing if you really really want to support the dev.
With registered Winrar user can add authenticity information in the archive that shows that you have created it and it is not tampered/modified by someone else.. And registered user can also use "Show protocol file" and "Delete protocol file", google didn't find what these commands do.
Posted September 06, 2015
http://www.howtogeek.com/120772/the-secret-winrar-test-comic/
Posted September 06, 2015
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MiKiL: With registered Winrar user can add authenticity information in the archive that shows that you have created it and it is not tampered/modified by someone else..
Most Linux package formats, including formats like .deb and .rpm, make it possible to sign archives.

Furthermore, simply creating an ar or tar archive containing both the real archive and a gpg signature of the real archive works if you need that functionality.
Posted September 06, 2015
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dtgreene: Also, ar and tar do not actually compress files; all they do is combine multiple files into a single one. (It is very common to compress tar files with another program like gzip or xz; so common, in fact, that such files are more common than uncompressed tar files!)
Ummm... How is this relevant? The unix OS was originally designed by breaking functionality into pieces, then you could mix and match, so each utility did it's own subset of jobs, but it did them VERY VERY WELL. Sort does sorting, tar/ar does archiving, Gzip/Bzip2/7z do compression, etc. This means compression isn't tied to the format. Zip will always be tied heavily to it's lz77 and have it's weak encryption model, while with tar if something good like xz comes along, you just compress it via a pipe and it's done.

Lack of random access might be an issue for really really really big tar files, but otherwise it's not really a limitation at all as far as i can tell, although mentioned with the 8Mb to 2Mb/200k, the amount of extra space saved (in many cases) probably easily makes it worth it. Although if you break down tar's name (Tape Archive)... yeah there is no random access, not precise enough to access a single file. So *shrugs*
Posted September 06, 2015
I still don't get why some people still buy WinRAR when there is 7Zip and PeaZip that work just as well and are free.

But I guess those are the same sort of people who use Adobe PDF instead of FoxPDF or SumatraPDF and Windows Media Player instead of MPHC and VLC Media Player.
Posted September 06, 2015
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Elenarie: Because selling software is tough. Especially when there are relatively good free alternatives out there. So the few sales you make better count for something, else you're better off just giving things away.

Which is why WinRAR is still sort of shareware. They hope that while you can use it forever without issues, you'd be kind enough to buy it and support them.
But for $40 probably not many people (if someone at all) will actually buy, especially if including that they offer a fully functional version for free as alternative and given the large number of free competetitors. They can only hope to get some donations at most and there it may be better to suggest a more reasonable price.

Basically they should, in my opinion, politely ask at most once per month to support the developers in an otherwise fully functional version and give people the chance to buy a regular support license ($10 disabling the friendly reminder once and for all) or to donate extraordinarily ($30, disabling the friendly reminder and being thanked officially on the web site and in the credits). That is their only hope to make some money.
Posted September 06, 2015
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Trilarion: Basically they should, in my opinion, politely ask at most once per month to support the developers in an otherwise fully functional version and give people the chance to buy a regular support license ($10 disabling the friendly reminder once and for all) or to donate extraordinarily ($30, disabling the friendly reminder and being thanked officially on the web site and in the credits). That is their only hope to make some money.
I'm reminded of Jasc and Paint Shop Pro 3.21, where the splash screen also told you how many days into your trial it was. Maybe it was meant to be a 30 day trial period, but it never stopped you from using all it's features (from what i could tell or remember). Loved that program... Still be using it if my GF didn't get PSP-X.
Posted September 07, 2015
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rtcvb32: I'm reminded of Jasc and Paint Shop Pro 3.21, where the splash screen also told you how many days into your trial it was. Maybe it was meant to be a 30 day trial period, but it never stopped you from using all it's features (from what i could tell or remember). Loved that program... Still be using it if my GF didn't get PSP-X.
I miss Paint Shop Pro...
Posted September 07, 2015
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rtcvb32: Loved that program...
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Ghostbreed: I miss Paint Shop Pro...
Me too.... *Shakes fist* Damn you Corel!
Posted September 07, 2015
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Wishbone: WinRAR? Is it 1998 again?
That's great, we can party like it's 1999 without having to be ironic about it.

As for the topic, I like Pea Zip.
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letsmaybeLP92: I still don't get why some people still buy WinRAR when there is 7Zip and PeaZip that work just as well and are free.

But I guess those are the same sort of people who use Adobe PDF instead of FoxPDF or SumatraPDF and Windows Media Player instead of MPHC and VLC Media Player.
I kind of get people using WinRAR and WMP. I don't get why anybody in their right mind uses Adobe PDF, that thing is so full of security problems that you might as well spread them wide for the script kiddies.
Post edited September 07, 2015 by hedwards
Posted September 07, 2015
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hedwards: I don't get why anybody in their right mind uses Adobe PDF, that thing is so full of security problems that you might as well spread them wide for the script kiddies.
Not to mention it takes like a minute to load up... SumatraPDF on the other hand loads instantly and gives you all the basic functionality you need; Or easily as well as Adobe but without the price point hanging over saying 'we can let you edit PDFs if you pay us $200 for the privelege!'... meh.... I've heard PDFs are a hack and a subset of postscript, so i'm not sure...
Posted September 07, 2015
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Painted_Doll: http://totalcmd.net/plugring/bzip2.html
7-zip has the encoder too. And its standard LZMA is faster in compression but slightly slower in decompression. But
if I wanted speed, I'll just archive uncompressed(TAR) or use the built-in winzip in windows explorer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bzip2#Implementations
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hedwards: I don't get why anybody in their right mind uses Adobe PDF, that thing is so full of security problems that you might as well spread them wide for the script kiddies.
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rtcvb32: Not to mention it takes like a minute to load up... SumatraPDF on the other hand loads instantly and gives you all the basic functionality you need; Or easily as well as Adobe but without the price point hanging over saying 'we can let you edit PDFs if you pay us $200 for the privelege!'... meh.... I've heard PDFs are a hack and a subset of postscript, so i'm not sure...
thanks i'll check it out. i stuck to official adobe reader because some pdf files absolutely refused to open without the latest adobe reader.
Post edited September 07, 2015 by dick1982
Posted September 07, 2015
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dick1982: But if I wanted speed, I'll just archive uncompressed(TAR) or use the built-in winzip in windows explorer.
It seems it would make more sense to have something like LZO as an option for sheer speed. Offers some good basic compression for almost no CPU power. Would work well with tar files that way...

Although it's faster to use 7zip with 'no compression' on zips or 7z archives than use windows explorer for sheer speed... But since i enjoy using advzip on my zip archives, default compression doesn't usually offer too much for me.
Posted September 07, 2015
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hedwards: I don't get why anybody in their right mind uses Adobe PDF, that thing is so full of security problems that you might as well spread them wide for the script kiddies.
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rtcvb32: Not to mention it takes like a minute to load up... SumatraPDF on the other hand loads instantly and gives you all the basic functionality you need; Or easily as well as Adobe but without the price point hanging over saying 'we can let you edit PDFs if you pay us $200 for the privelege!'... meh.... I've heard PDFs are a hack and a subset of postscript, so i'm not sure...
Sumatra is nice, but there was something it couldn't do that foxit could. Can't remember off-hand but looking at it now, sumatra is truly faster than foxit.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionWhy is WinRAR so expensive?(161 posts)(161 posts)
(161 posts)