Let’s lay the cards on the table: Who among you actually bought a WinRAR license? Seriously, who did? Even with all the “cleverness” that characterizes Spaniards, many of you might know people who have bought a license for Windows or Microsoft Office (the person writing these lines is one of them). But WinRAR?
A few years ago, most of us relied on WinRAR during times when… well… it was the only program available for compressing and extracting RAR files. This file format offered many advantages over the classic ZIP files, including better file compression and the ability to set passwords.
However, while ZIP files always came pre-installed with Windows operating systems, to extract those RAR files we downloaded from the internet (all legally, of course), we had no choice but to download WinRAR… and pay for it. Yes, we all ignored the message urging us to purchase a WinRAR license. And yes, it could be a bit annoying.
Now, nearly three decades after WinRAR’s release, Windows has finally decided to offer native support for RAR files without the need for any third-party software. Microsoft confirms this in a blog post titled “A New Era of Productivity,” where they discuss the future of Windows 11.
“We’ve added native support for additional file formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and many others using the open-source project libarchive,” states Microsoft. “Now you can get improved performance from file functionality during compression on Windows.”
Thanks to libarchive, an open-source project with a library that supports various file compression formats, Windows 11 will now allow us to compress and extract virtually any type of file without the need to install WinRAR or other compression programs like 7-zip.
While it’s true that the vast majority of us never had many issues with WinRAR (including the nagging message), this native support will be highly useful for many less tech-savvy individuals. The days of receiving WhatsApp messages like “Hey, how do I open this file you sent me?” are over.
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