which one is better rar or 7z?

[shawshankraj]

I voted for winrar

[alpacino]

I use winrar a lot, so RAR, but I like 7z as I use it sometimes with my backups.

[anonftw]

7zip has better compression, but rar seems to more widely used. So, I use it too.

[TheFaker]

always use rar

[splicer]

I use WinRAR, and the .rar format. I guess The Scene has influenced me too much.

[vannelli87]

I also voted for RAR.

[Master Razor]

I use the command line versions of them. WinRAR is free this way and 7z is great for automatic archival and stuff.
Technically, I;m using both and I have no problems with archive formats getting replaced.

[anon]

$5 to whoever can tell me why this thread was created

[saebrtooth]

i have used rar compression for ages but recently 7z compression is making up ground
i have personaly compared the two and i have to admit 7z wins most of the time for binaries data

but the rar have better manager like winrar that has lot of nice features and very user friendly compared to 7z manager that is very simplistic and stiff

what do you sbi-ers think?

Are you talking about compression or ease of use? or a balance of both?

[saebrtooth]

$5 to whoever can tell me why this thread was created

gime gime gime

[cirulilu]

7zip better compression ratio

[SaintShaolin]

Definitely RAR.
WinRAR seems to have better features than 7zip.

[Okaim]

rar soupports 128bits AES encryption
7zip soupports 256bits AES encryption

[Master Razor]

7zip better compression ratio

This and:

• it is free for personal and commercial use
• it has better encryption
• Self-Extracting Archives are much flexible than in RAR
• it is smaller in size and lightwieght in memory footprint

RAR is more popular...

So, are we using programs because they are popular?

Perhaps winrar has more features but I don't you use them all. This is an archiver and it contains everything related to archives. Not fancy stuff.

[gu5t3r]

If you pack 7-zip app with compressed archive, you still have smaller file than rar =)