Software overview

Overview of WinRAR

WinRAR is a type of archyving program widely used to compress data to save time on data transfers or free up the hard disk space (Fellows, 2010). According to their own website, WinRAR has over 500 million users and is the most popular compression tool. It is not freeware, however it offers a free trial. Its main use case is to compress large files to reduce the time it takes to trasnfer them between devices such as phones or personal computers. What is more it can be used as a data encryption tool and sometimes can be used by criminals to hide secretive information (Fellows, 2010).

Its biggest competitor is 7-zip, which is open source and free to use (Smith, 2016).

WinRAR is compatible with a large amount of devices and its computational requirements are very undemanding (win-rar.com):

• Windows 11
• Windows 10
• Windows 8
• Windows 7

References:

Fellows, G., 2010. WinRAR temporary folder artefacts. Digital Investigation, 7(1-2), pp.9-13.

Smith, M., 2016. Researchers reveal flaws in 7-Zip, users and security vendors affected. Network World (Online), .  

 RAR Products - Windows. Available at: https://www.win-rar.com/products-winrar.html?&L=0 (Accessed: December 2, 2022).