BOXING CLEVER. (WinRAR)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	WinRAR
Date:	27/11/06 (238 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Neat storage of files, quick compression.

Disadvantages: It is not free, although the price is reasonable.

WinRar for the computer illiterate.

It has taken me years to learn things about programs that help my computer experience, and the learning process is a hard one simply because people don't give information in easy terms. Take this program for instance. There are many places on the net that describe its processes and what benefit they are to the user, although none that I have found that can help those people that know very little about technology.

I started using WinRar when I noticed that many files I need to send by email need to be made smaller. If you imagine compression in terms of neatness, then you wouldn't be far wrong imagining you want to send a clothes parcel from A to B, dump it all in a bin-bag and then get the shock of your life when you can't get it into a letter box. Compression is about making things smaller. Imagine, for example, a cupboard full to brimming of rubbish. You open the doors. There is no room to put things and the things that are there are inaccessible because of the mess. Well, a computer is like this in many ways and compression of files is a superb way of cleaning up space, a bit like sorting out that cupboard and having everything neatly placed where you can find it or in this case archived.

WinRar is not a free program. You pay for it, although you do get a trial period of 40 days which will persuade you to part with the modest amount of money being asked, i.e. Just over 15 GBP. What it offers is worth this small price. The kind of files it is capable of dealing with are the following :


(RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip).

Now, many of these mean very little to me as a user, although what it does do for me is superb. Take for example a text document, and here I have thousands on my computer. With this program I can take many files and pop them all into themed boxes (called archives), totally compressed and all together in the same place. The advantage ? With text documents I save up to 60 per cent of the space that the original documents took, with Word documents, this comes up to a staggering 89 per cent, and that really is worth thinking about, because saved space makes your computer work faster.

As far as photographs are concerned, I don't use this program since the compression of photographs is minimal and I can already make these into smaller files with my photographic programs.

I like the options of being able to download files from the Internet and then ask the program to check out whether viruses have been added to the package and this really is easy to do. I also like the fact that compressing files means that I can send them across the Internet 50 per cent faster than uncompressed files.

People told me years ago about WinZip and I never got on with the program, though I really like the design and layout of WinRar. It's simple to understand and makes my storage of files neater. Okay, so I am a bit fussy and like the fancy icons that the program gives you, neat like a small stack of books, but by using an icon like that, they actually help a person like me that did not understand archiving to get the hang of it, use it and profit by it. Another thing I like with WinRar is that if you want to extract one file from an archive, then that is easily possible, and different archives can be split or changed around whenever you want to, and easily as well.

It's a worthy program, with regular free updates and even password encryption if you want your files to be protected, although I don't use this feature. It's shareware at its' best, and features no advertising, and after the 40 day period of trying it out, the fee paid really is small when you compare to the convenience you have gained from using it.

No doubt with time and ever changing technology, there will always be new programs, although this has helped me enormously and I love using it.

WinRAR is a neat package. It helps also when you download from the Internet and can open many formats of file, and what I like with this program as opposed to WinZip is that you can access any one of the individual files within each WinRAR archive easily, locate them, use them, burn them to CD or whatever you want to do easily and quickly. The download is simple and quick, and getting used to using the program a doddle even for people that know very little about file compression. It's built in ability to know how many files you can put on a CD automatically is so much more user friendly than WinZip's irritating reminders that you need to add a new disc. Another neat feature is that you can do a dry run or prognosis which will tell you how much a file will be compressed and what space the resulting file will take. This really is a useful feature.

What I like about this program is that it is so easy to use. Simply right click the file that you want to compress, and in seconds it is compressed, and you can instantly see what it was before compression and after, and forward in email automatically just by right clicking.

All in all a good solid program and good value, and although other programs are in competition with WinRAR, such as Alzip, this one looks more serious and less gimmicky and suit my needs well.

Available for use with All Windows, Linux and Mac and in over twenty languages, taking only a small space on your hard drive at less than 4MB, I believe this award winning program really is one of the best I have used for file compression and would thoroughly recommend it both for speed of use, lack of excess noise, and user friendliness.

Downloadable from : www.win-rar.com

Summary: A good experience program and gives you more control over your files.

Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Noise:
Speed:
Variety of features: