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After 20 Years, I've Finally Found a Replacement for WinRAR
How to geek ^ | 30th July 2025 | Nick Lewis

Posted on 07/31/2025 3:15:04 AM PDT by Cronos

WinRAR has been such a steadfast part of the Windows experience that its payment model—politely nagging users to buy a license—has become a meme. But after more than 20 years, I've finally found an alternative.

What's Wrong with WinRAR? WinRAR is packed with great features, and in the decades I've been using it, I could count on one hand the number of times I've encountered a bug.

Unfortunately, it has two things working against it for me.

WinRAR's User Interface Is Stuck in the Past To WinRAR's credit, it fully integrates with Windows 11's new(ish) right-click context menu, which is way more than can be said for many 30-year-old apps.

However, the rest of the user interface feels extremely dated. Besides a light reskin to vaguely match the aesthetic of Windows 11, the UI has been more or less the same since before smartphones were invented.

That is good if you have the entire interface committed to muscle memory, but I never found WinRAR's menus to be particularly navigable in the first place. Even after using it for a very long time, I still frequently find myself rifling through menus trying to find the option that I'm looking for.

WinRAR is badly in need of a user interface overhaul to align more with the general design philosophy of apps today and to make it more approachable.

NanaZip Has Replaced WinRAR NanaZip is an archival program much like WinRAR. You can create, modify, or manipulate popular archival formats like ZIP, 7z, RAR, and countless others

Since it is a fork of 7-Zip, it has all of 7-Zip's advanced features, too, like the ability to create and manage split archives, which can be handy if you're working with a limited file system like FAT32. I've also used them to move large files on DVDs and CDs that wouldn't ordinarily be able to fit it.

However, the main selling point for me was the more modern user interface.

Not only is the general look more modern, there are very few advanced features buried in the settings menu that I need to sift through to find what I'm looking for. More features are directly exposed when you go to create or modify an archive


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: windows; winrar

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Quite frankly I prefer winzip for its interface and recovery to nanaZip. What about you?
1 posted on 07/31/2025 3:15:04 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Cronos

Haven’t used Windows since 2004…


2 posted on 07/31/2025 3:26:37 AM PDT by dinodino ( Shut it down anyway. )
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To: Cronos

I read the article. This writer is a walking contradiction. Complaining that WinRAR isn’t open source while using Windows (which clearly isn’t open-source) is ridiculous.


3 posted on 07/31/2025 3:43:19 AM PDT by mjustice (Apparently common sense isn't so common.)
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To: Cronos

I’ve been using 7-Zip for 20+ years. Free. No complaints.


4 posted on 07/31/2025 3:45:20 AM PDT by Duke C.
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To: Cronos

Been using PEAzip for years, it works just as good for what I need.


5 posted on 07/31/2025 4:24:23 AM PDT by DataJunkie
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To: Cronos

Been using an old version of 7-Zip for years - never had cause to look elsewhere - or for upgrades.


6 posted on 07/31/2025 5:10:09 AM PDT by trebb (So many fools - so little time...)
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To: Cronos
I've been using Windows for 30 years.

But what is WinRAR?

7 posted on 07/31/2025 5:45:02 AM PDT by Angelino97
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To: Cronos

Used 7-Zip for years. I find I don’t zip files nearly as much anymore.


8 posted on 07/31/2025 5:45:43 AM PDT by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: Cronos; ShadowAce; dayglored; Swordmaker; CodeJockey

WinRAR PingRAR!................


9 posted on 07/31/2025 6:03:34 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Angelino97

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinRAR


10 posted on 07/31/2025 6:04:11 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Codeflier

I used to use LHArc back in the day...............(now it’s the heart of the pdf)


11 posted on 07/31/2025 6:05:36 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Cronos

I thought this was going to be about some new baseball metric.


12 posted on 07/31/2025 6:16:35 AM PDT by pas
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To: Cronos; rdb3; JosephW; martin_fierro; Still Thinking; zeugma; Vinnie; ironman; Egon; raybbr; ...

13 posted on 07/31/2025 6:23:35 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux - The Ultimate Windows Service Pack )
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To: Cronos

14 posted on 07/31/2025 7:11:23 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: Duke C.

“I’ve been using 7-Zip for 20+ years. Free. No complaints.”

ditto ...


15 posted on 07/31/2025 7:38:10 AM PDT by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))
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To: Cronos

Built in zip to windows is good enough for me. And it does 7-zip and tar now as well.


16 posted on 07/31/2025 8:05:36 AM PDT by for-q-clinton (ui)
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To: Cronos

I like WinRAR the way it is. I’m older, more stuck in my ways, and the older user interface is just fine. Keep it simple.


17 posted on 07/31/2025 8:40:48 AM PDT by ducttape45 (Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?")
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To: ShadowAce

Back “in the day” storage space in the form of hard drives and portable formats cost serious money, so compression programs were a godsend. But I learned they would occasionally corrupt files somewhere in the compress/expand process in a way where those files were beyond recovery. In a job where one is handling other people’s money such errors are intolerable, so I avoided use of .zip wherever possible and just invested in ever-larger storage mediums.

Thirty years later those mediums have vastly improved and become much more affordable. Terabyte-plus solid state drives and multi-gigabyte thumb drives are now the norm while transmission technology has progressed everywhere short of Antarctica. But it’s good to know improvements have been made in old yet still-handy programs many people still rely on.


18 posted on 07/31/2025 9:24:36 AM PDT by MikelTackNailer (Listen to me now, think about it later and cry about it some other day.)
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To: pas

Bill James ping...


19 posted on 07/31/2025 10:48:52 AM PDT by Duke C.
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To: ShadowAce
7Zip worked fine on Linux for a long time..
Just recently, RAR files wouldn't unarchive, so I had to add 'unrar' to my Linux, and use the console/terminal.
When using the GUI, it would open then close without doing anything (and show nothing inside the archive).
20 posted on 07/31/2025 2:39:50 PM PDT by Bikkuri (I am proud to be a PureBlood.)
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