RAR Format
Commercial format with high compression and corruption-recovery features
History
RAR (Roshal Archive) is a proprietary compression format developed in 1993 by Eugene Roshal of Russia, distributed with WinRAR. It compresses text and code data more efficiently than ZIP. The 2013 RAR5 (version 5) release brought major format improvements, and today both RAR4 and RAR5 are in active use.
Key Features
- Proprietary algorithms — RAR4 uses PPMd-II; RAR5 introduces a new algorithm — both deliver very high compression ratios
- Recovery Record — Allows partial recovery of corrupted archives (a unique RAR feature)
- Solid compression — Groups files together for additional ratio gains
- Split archives — .part1.rar, .part2.rar … (RAR5) or .rNN (RAR4)
- AES-128/256 encryption — RAR5 strengthens to AES-256 with optional filename encryption
- BLAKE2 integrity — RAR5 adds strong cryptographic hash verification
Strengths
Very high compression, recovery, and stability make RAR ideal for large data archival and long-term backups. The ability to partially recover corrupted archives is a major advantage.
KingZip Support
KingZip extracts both RAR4 and RAR5 archives — including split RAR (.partN.rar / .rNN), password protection, solid compression, and recovery record bypass. RAR creation is not supported due to licensing restrictions.