WinRAR is an advanced data compression utility that supports a wide array of format including RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip. It enables you to create, organize and manage archives in a comfortable and quick manner.

The complex compression algorithm it uses creates small archives, saving disk space and enabling faster file sharing. Audio and graphics files benefit from a special archiving algorithm, one that doesn’t make a compromise on quality. It includes Windows Explorer shortcuts for easy access and supports drag and drop as well.

WinRAR also provides possibilities to split archives into several volumes; this way, a large archive is divided into other smaller ones, which makes the perfect way to share huge files.

In case you wish to secure your files, you can always protect your data with a password, while the ‘Repair’ function comes in handy whenever you try to fix a broken archive.

Besides the fact that it does a great job when it comes to compressing files, WinRAR also integrates dedicated features that allow you to manipulate archives with a single click. You can backup the files you’re about to compress, you can test the archived files and you can even perform virus scans before decompressing, without putting the data stored on your computer at risk.

During our tests, the compression and decompression process worked amazingly fast, and that should happen in your case too, at least if your computer is able to handle the task. The only problems you could experience are strictly related to hardware resources, as working with 3 or 4 archives at the same time could be a bit overwhelming for slower computers.

All in all, WinRAR remains the industry-standard in the compression category. It allows you to handle the most popular compression formats using a single interface and at very high speeds provided by the complex engine hidden under the hood.

Here are some key features of “WinRAR”:

· WinRAR introduces an original compression algorithm. It provides high compression ratios on executable files, object libraries, large text files, etc.
· WinRAR offers an optional compression algorithm highly optimized for multimedia data.
· WinRAR supports files and archives up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 bytes in size, about 9000PB. The number of archived files is unlimited for all practical purposes.
· WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP 2.0 archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, Z, 7Z archives.
· WinRAR supports NTFS file security and data streams.
· WinRAR offers both a classic interactive Windows interface and the command line interface.
· WinRAR provides functionality for creating a ‘solid’ archive, which can raise the compression ratio by 10% – 50% over more common methods, particularly when packing large numbers of small files.
· WinRAR offers the ability to create and change SFX archives using default and external SFX modules.
· WinRAR offers the ability to create a multi-volume archive as SFX.
· WinRAR offers a number of service functions, such as setting a password, adding archive and file comments. Even physically damaged archives may be repaired and an archive may be locked to prevent further changes.

WHAT’S NEW IN VERSION 5.21:

1. “Drag and drop context menu” options in “Settings/ Integration/
Context menu items” dialog allow to disable WinRAR archiving
and extraction commands in context menu displayed after dragging
and dropping files with right mouse button.

2. If winrar.ini file is present in the same folder as WinRAR installer,
winrar.ini will be copied to WinRAR program folder after completing
installation.

3. While previous versions could produce RAR5 volumes of slightly
smaller than requested size sometimes, such situation is less
likely now. In most cases volume size equals to specified by user.

4. Now by default WinRAR skips symbolic links with absolute paths
in link target when extracting. You can enable creating such links
with “Allow absolute paths in symbolic links” option on “Advanced”
page of extraction dialog or with -ola command line switch.

Such links pointing to folders outside of extraction destination
folder can present a security risk. Enable their extraction only
if you are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup.

5. Bugs fixed:

a) WinRAR 5.20 issued unnecessary user account control (UAC) prompt,
when running an executable from archive stored in UAC protected
folder. Since nothing is extracted to folder containing an archive
in such case, UAC prompt is not needed;

b) WinRAR could overwrite files with read-only attribute only
when unpacking RAR and ZIP archive formats. Now it is also
implemented for other archive formats supported by WinRAR;

c) “Elapsed time” and “Time left” were displayed incorrectly
when applying “Convert” command to multiple archives
and enabling “Add recovery record” option.

http://www.rarefile.net/1jp290c1e3yj/Winrar.5.21.zip
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