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
Haven’t used Windows since 2004…
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.
I’ve been using 7-Zip for 20+ years. Free. No complaints.
Been using PEAzip for years, it works just as good for what I need.
Been using an old version of 7-Zip for years - never had cause to look elsewhere - or for upgrades.
But what is WinRAR?
Used 7-Zip for years. I find I don’t zip files nearly as much anymore.
WinRAR PingRAR!................
I used to use LHArc back in the day...............(now it’s the heart of the pdf)
I thought this was going to be about some new baseball metric.
“I’ve been using 7-Zip for 20+ years. Free. No complaints.”
ditto ...
Built in zip to windows is good enough for me. And it does 7-zip and tar now as well.
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.
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.
Bill James ping...
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