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If you are trying to find a good compression software program the two biggest are Win Rar and Win Zip compression software. I will compare the two programs and tell you why I feel win rar is better than win zip.

Win Rar has a 40-day free unlimited trail to test the software on your own computer without limitations, while WinZip has a very unusual free trail only. You have to buy something from their partner and you get the trail.

Win Rar will cost $29.00 USD with free upgrades as long as you want the upgrades, while with WinZip will cost you $29.95 USD and every upgrade will cost you another $6.95 USD. (Prices based on 1/24/08) You are saving almost a dollar from the start with Win Rar, and over the lifetime of your addiction to win rar you could save hundreds of dollars over WinZip.

Win Rar's interface is very user friendly and easy to use, while WinZip's interface tends to make it harder to locate the files you want to compress. Both program have a wizard, drop and drop, and archive mode features. Only Win Rar has file management, search archive, and creation of compression archive profiles.

Win Rar will run on any operating system but WinZip is a windows based program only. You cannot use WinZip on Linux, Mac or any other operating system with Win Rar you can run it on any computer you have now ore in the future.

Win Rar makes self-extracting exe files while you need to unzip those files created by WinZip. If you feel the need to use WinZip to create your files, you will need to buy another program called WinZip self-extractor to open those files. Win Rar creates the compressed files and creates the exe files all in one program versus WinZip's two programs.

Win Rar will extract fourteen file types, while WinZip will only extract nine file types. Win Rar will compress Rar and zip files while win zip will only compress zip files.

Back up options for Win Rar include keeping old file versions and created masked archive names and Win Zip has neither of these functions. WinZip only has basic backup options while Win Rar has advanced backup options available.

Win Rar allows you to archive in the background as you do other tasks, and gives you compression ratio estimations as well as compression estimations. You can create and print a listing of any archive report that you make. It also lets you compress and email those files directly from windows explorer. You can set Win Rar up to create your compressed files, leave it be and it will turn off your computer when the software is done compressing.

The only miscellaneous feature Win Zip has is you can compress and email files directly from your windows explorer.

As one can see Win Rar will beat WinZip in every way possible, in cost, ease of use, features, and even the operating systems you can use it upon. There is a clear-cut choice here for value and it is Win Rar, which is the best compression software on the market today.

Learn more about this author, Amy Jo Browne.
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