WinRAR

1. Changes in RAR compression:
a) RAR general compression algorithm is optimized for better
utilization of several processor cores. While some speed gain
is possible even in single processor mode, best results
are achieved in multi-core environment.
Speed gain depends on data type and average file size.
Several cores are utilized more efficiently when compressing
large files.              Download Now
b) we had to increase memory requirements to achieve higher
compression speed. General RAR compression algorithm allocates
about 120 MB comparing to 40 MB in WinRAR 4.11;
c) RAR text compression algorithm cannot utilize several CPU cores efficiently, so its performance in multiprocessor environment is much lower than for general algorithm. Also its decompression
speed is much lower than in general algorithm regardless of CPU number. So we decided to disable the text algorithm by default.
If you need maximum possible compression ratio for plain text data regardless of speed, you can enable the text compression in "Advanced compression parameter" dialog. Press "Compression..." button on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog to access it.You can also change this option permanently in default compression
profile;
In the command line mode the text compression can be enabled with -mct switch;
d) "Fastest" (-m1) compression mode also supports several processor
cores now. In 4.11 it could use only a single processor core.
2. RAR general decompression algorithm speed is slightly improved,
though not to same extent as RAR compression. RAR decompression
is not able to use several processor cores, so its performance
does not depend on a number of cores.
3. Changes in ZIP compression:
a) now ZIP compression supports several processor cores resulting
in noticeably higher performance in multi-core environment.
Single CPU ZIP compression is also faster than in 4.11;
b) memory use for ZIP compression is increased to about 15 MB.
4. Recovery volume creating and processing can use several CPU cores
resulting in higher speed. Though, typically hard drive seek speed
is a limiting factor for recovery volumes, so this gain is most
noticeable when working with solid state drive.
5. Now the allowed value for -mt switch is 1 - 32,
not 0 - 16 as before.
6. "Find files" command can search data in 7-Zip archives.
Previously "Find files" did not support .7z archive format.
7. Windows 2000 is not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting
modules anymore.
8. "Save current settings" button in "Advanced SFX options" dialog
is now available only when converting an existing archive to SFX.
Options saved with this button are applied only to convert to SFX
operation.
If you create or update SFX archive, only SFX options stored
in default compression profile are used. Options saved
in "Advanced SFX options" dialog are ignored for these operations.

What's new in version 4.1 beta

1. Improved detection of UTF-8 encoding in file names in ZIP archives.
WinRAR attempts to recognize Unicode names, even when UTF-8 flag is not present in ZIP archive headers.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) If switch -t was set in RAR environment variable, WinRAR "View"command failed to open archived files
b) ""Autodetect" string" option in "Define volume sizes" dialog did not work;
c) If "Split to volumes, size" in default compression profile was set to "Autodetect", "Delete" and "Add comment" commands refused to modify ZIP archives.

What's new in version 4.0

New:
- RARLAB.COM website design.
- WinRAR themes

What's new in version 3.9 beta

1. This version can decompress 7-Zip archives created with LZMA2 algorithm.
2. Now a password is requested only once when unpacking 7z archives with encrypted file names from context menu. WinRAR 3.90 asked it twice.
3. This version can unpack tar.bz2 archives consisting of several smaller bz2 streams merged together. Previous versions unpacked only the first nested bz2 stream in such composite archive.
4. WinRAR displays CRC32 of files inside of usual .gz (not .tar.gz) archives. Previous versions left this field blank for GZIP files.
5. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 3.90 displayed "Save" button instead of "Open" or "OK" in "Find archive" dialog ("Open archive" command in "File" menu and "Browse..." command in archiving dialog);
b) WinRAR could display incorrect file names when browsing malformed ZIP archives;
c) WinRAR 3.90 failed to decompress LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm;
d) WinRAR 3.90 could fail to delete a part of files after archiving if delete to Recycle Bin was enabled. This bug was present when working in Windows XP, but not in Windows Vista and Windows 7;
e) when unpacking ISO file using WinRAR "Extract files..." command in Explorer context menu, WinRAR could unpack same archived files twice during the same operation. It displayed the overwrite prompt when unpacking files for the second time;
f) hexadecimal search in WinRAR 3.90 "Find" command and console RAR "ih" command failed to find matches if first byte in search string was greater than 127.