What is the difference between ZIP and RAR


ZIP File Format

ZIP is a file format for archiving and lossless data compression. This file format was created in 1989 by Phil Katz. ZIP is a popular format supported by several software tools, including Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X's built-in ZIP support. The most incredible thing is that ZIP files may be opened by any application that produces them.

ZIP files are data containers that use Zip compression to enclose one or more files in a compressed or zipped manner. On the other hand, ZIP archives can do more than compress data; they can also encrypt (password-protected) files and divide archives with only a few clicks. Several techniques, including LZMA, WavPack, PPMd, BZIP2, DEFLATE, and others, can be used to compress or zip multiple files.

Multiple files can be stored in.ZIP archives. ZIP allows you to compress your files in a variety of ways, as well as just store them without squeezing them. Because each file is kept individually, various files in the same archive can be compressed differently. Since the files in a ZIP archive are compressed separately, they may be extracted or replaced without compressing or compressing the entire library.

RAR File Format

The acronym RAR refers to Roshal Archive. A compressed file is a type of archive file that is proprietary. It is a collection of one or more files or directories.

Unlike regular folders on your hard drive, RAR files require third-party software to access and extract the archive's contents. It's a WinRAR archiver's native file format for storing multiple files in compressed form. RAR is typically more effective at data compression than ZIP's default support.

RAR uses the filename extension ".rar" for data volume sets and ".rev" for recovery volume sets. RAR versions before this one divided extensive archive into several smaller files, resulting in a "multi-volume archive." To maintain the smaller files in the proper order, numbers were utilized in their file extensions. The first file had the extension ".rar", the second had the extension ".r00", and the third had the extensions ".r01" and ".r02".

Only commercial applications such as WinRAR (Windows), RAR[8] for Android, command-line RAR (Windows, MS-DOS, MacOS, Linux, and FreeBSD), and other software.

Difference between ZIP and RAR

ZIPRAR
Phil Katz designed the ZIP archive file format as a standard for lossless data compression.Eugene Roshal created RAR, a proprietary archive file format for lossless data compression.
It is a free and open standard that has several implementations and is widely used.It is not free, because compressing and decompressing data needs the use of a third-party application called WinRAR archiver.
The ZIP format compresses data at a slower rate than the RAR format.The RAR format compresses data more efficiently than the ZIP format.
ZIP provides password-based security.RAR does not include a password-based security feature.
Several applications, such as WinRAR, WinZIP, Freebyte Zip, and others, can generate ZIP files.WinRAR is the only software that can generate RAR files.
ZIP employs the somewhat insecure ZIP 2.0 encryption method.RAR uses the considerably more efficient AES-128 encryption method.
".zip" and ".zipx" are the file extensions.".rar", ".rev" , ".r00", and ".r01" are the file extensions.

Updated on: 17-Aug-2021

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