Unlike ZIP, you do need third-party software to open or create RAR formats, but you get the benefit of much better compression. Even though the format is available to all, it’s not open source due to limitations set on reverse engineering. RAR, on the other hand, was developed by Eugene Roshal in 1993 (RAR stands for Roshal Archive). ZIP also supports light compression and password-based encryption.

It’s open-source and supported by all major operating systems right out of the box. ZIP is one of the original archive formats created in 1989 by Phil Katz. But they are also not the same and are used with slightly different goals in mind.

What’s The Difference Between RAR and ZIP?īoth RAR and ZIP are incredibly popular when it comes to creating archives. Let’s look at the differences between them, how to use them, and how to convert RAR to ZIP and back at any moment. There are lots of formats for archiving files. Archives keep the files and relationships between them exactly the same - with the added benefits of only having to deal with a single file that could also weigh less due to compression. So what do you do?Ī great solution is to archive whatever you’re about to send before you send it. Similarly, when you share an app (which is essentially a folder), most likely it won’t work on another Mac. If you put them in a folder, it often arrives empty. If you share too many files, they become hard to manage and some of them could get lost or overlooked. While it’s relatively easy to share one file over email or a cloud storage solution - sharing folders or multiple files at once is often a challenge. It could be a photo album from the latest trip or a collection of financial reports from the last quarter - our goal in all cases is to make sure the files arrive intact. Part of our digital day-to-day lives right now, whether personal or work-related, is the constant sharing of files. Compress and unpack any files on Mac with Archiver.

Zip to rar converter download