WinRAR flaw lets hackers run programs when you open RAR archives

Well now I'm definitely not buying it.
- I never understood the appeal of paid programs. 7-Zip works equally well and is free and open source software. It integrates much nicer into File Explorer as well.
  
  Supporting the developers??
  
  I agree that 7zip is great (albeit based in Russia, so not something I'm sure I want to support at the moment), but consider for a moment that winrar licencing is primarily aimed at businesses (which is why they don't bother locking personal users out after the trial ends), and for that money you get a certain guarantee of functionality and stability over a long period of time.
  There's absolutely no guarantees that 7zip will continue to be developed, or that it will retain it's current features and functionality - the developer can turn it into a Minesweeper clone if they feel like it, and there's nothing a business can do but keep using an outdated and thus potentially dangerous version that will eventually become unusable.
  You also get a certain level of customer service and corporate communication between the purchasing company and the production company to help resolve issues, which may not exist at all with the alternative.
  It's also not always wise to have your business rely heavily on a tool that only sees development through volunteer work by a limited number of disparate people that may come and go, and while I don't know how large the volunteer base is that works on 7zip (it could be just the one guy, it could be a hundred people), to a company it'll never feel as reliable an option as relying on a tool that sees development and maintenance through a paid, full time staff at an established legal entity company with an established reputation.
  And speaking for a moment to that established company bit, consider that winrar's company is based in Berlin, within the European Union and under it's rules and laws, which is a far better proposition from a company's standpoint than having to legally deal with an individual guy inside the Russian Federation, especially one that hasn't actually sold your business a product at all.
  Anyway, just a few potential thoughts for why tools that do the same job might be preferred by a business, sorry it got a bit long 😅
  
  I like WinRAR for its built-in parity functionality. You can achieve similar results with 7-Zip using PAR2, but having it built right into WinRAR with two options (add a recovery record to each archive, or create separate recovery archives (basically what PAR2 does)) is so much more convenient.
  WinRAR is like what..? 30-35 bucks? That's per user, unlimited machines, lifetime license. More than fair I'd say.
  
  WinRAR has so much better UI than 7zip.
  I will honestly move away from WinRAR if something better with dark theme is launched.
  
  Lol wooosh I guess?
  
  Microsoft basically copied WinRAR added it to the OS, back in the windows 7 days you needed WinRAR
  
  WinRar decompresses directly to destination. All other I have tried does it to like c:/tmp (can probably change that though) then copy it over, which is impractical or even impossible with really large files.
  That's about it though IMO.
- does it still let you infinitely have a free trial??
  
  Just blow the dust off that copy of serials2k 🤣
- You deserve the updoot sir

"Embrace ~~tar.gz~~ 7zip, son!"
- Why is there rarely a mention of 7zip?
  
  I feel like I’ve seen it mentioned like 50 times in the past two weeks here on Lemmy.
- PeaZip I would suggest better.

Well at least someone's gonna make money from WinRAR users

Just use 7-Zip
- if you’re on Windows use NanaZip. 7Zip refuses to use modern compression and encryption algorithms or integrate with the new Windows APIs. NanaZip is a fork that does just that.
  https://github.com/M2Team/NanaZip
  
  Windows?! What?!
  
  Thanks, will check this out!
  
  Latest release is a touch old (2022) and it's not the most active repo ever. Hopefully its not dying.

Interesting. About a month ago I joined the elite club of WinRAR licence owners.
- These hackers must be targeting you, then.
- I bought mine and own it happily - us licence holders should all get together, we could probably fill up a Chuck-E-Cheese
- One of three
- Mine is a few years older.

Well, good that Windows now has native RAR support.
- Somehow Windows has always been and is still crap at managing archives. Ultra-slow, has trouble opening or extracting individual files inside the archive, etc.
  However, 7-zip has been doing all that perfectly forever now. Not sure why anyone would use WinRAR, paid for or not.
  
  Even 7Zip now though is insecure and outdated. Use NanaZip if you’re on windows, it's a fork that is more secure and uses modern compression/encryption algorithms in addition to integrating better with current Windows APIs
  https://github.com/M2Team/NanaZip
  
  Yeah maybe isn't great but I admit that be able to use the open file window from a program and select a file inside a compressed file is nice.
  
  WinRAR is an internet institution at this point. It’s like Amtrak, why would anyone ride the train when there are better cheaper and faster modes of transport? Don’t know but people do anyway
- *Only for opening rar files. Not creating them.

However, from a practical perspective, deceiving users into performing the required action shouldn't be overly challenging, and given the vast size of WinRAR's user base
Excuse me, but "vast" size of WinRAR's user base? I didn't know WinRAR even had any users left.
- 9 out of 10 people I know use WinRAR. It's amongst the very firsr software they install at fresh start.
  I myself also just changed to 7-Zip around... I don't know, a year ago?
  
  Which part of the world is this, if you don't mind me asking? (just genuinely curious, cause I haven't come across any WinRARs in the wild here in NZ, most folks I know use either 7-Zip or PeaZip).
- There is that one last user
  https://youtu.be/lX_pF03vCSU
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/lX_pF03vCSU
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- Well, even FAR manager which they've open-souced long time ago is still maintained 😀 Good thing they didn't discover this bug in 2000s!
  
  That looks quite interesting, seems like they've even got quite an extensive list of plugins - looks like may be even better than Midnight Commander. :o
  
  Ah, FAR manager.
  I used it last time around... 15 years ago to apply VKP patches on my Sony Ericsson phones :P like making my K750i into a 'W750i' with W800i software, adding GFX and Acoustic patches...
  
  I'm still using sweet FAR Manager, absolute baller of a software.
- Still use it out of habit!

the only reason anyone still uses this shit is ignorance
- On a very very rare occasion I've had to use it for scene cracks as other apps didn't work. They use WinRAR to archive it so on those very rare occasions it's the only thing that unpacks it
  
  WinRAR also lets you delete files from a RAR archive, 7zip does not.
- For me it’s laziness.
- I bought a lifetime license literally more than 20 years ago to support the developer. I use 7Zip for most stuff but prefer WinRAR for split rar archive support.
- That's, quite ironically, a pretty ignorant opinion. There are areas where WinRAR is stronger than 7zip.
  
  The person you replied to never mentioned 7-Zip, and there's forks and other programs that are probably just as strong in the same areas.

It's what we get for not buying it XD

It's been like at least 5 years since I've seen a rar file.

PeaZip is GOAT software. Truly amazing.
- How does it compare to 7-Zip?
  
  They are basically a vitamined frontend + custom backend for 7zip-zstd supporting several other formats such as lzip.
  
  It support zip, rar, 7z. Basically all archive formats. It has way better UI. It is open source. It is free in beer.
- This!
  I used winrar at first, but never truly trusted 7zip. Didn't like the way it looked. Then first time I learned about ninite, I saw peazip and never looked back.
  With the soon to be supported .rar on windows 11 I might do away with it but I feel peazip works faster.
  
  Use PeaZip
  
  The built in zip support in windows is super slow. I wonder if they will improve it when rar support comes.