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Difference between ZIP and RAR

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1. ZIP : 
It is a file format that supports lossless data compression and archiving. Phil Katz was the developer of this file format in 1989. Today, ZIP is a widely used format and is supported by several software utilities including the built-in ZIP support provided by Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The best part, ZIP files can be opened with any program that creates ZIP files. 

ZIP files are data containers that contain one or more files together in a compressed or zipped format using Zip compression. Well, ZIP archives are capable of more than just compressing files; they can encrypt files (password protected) and split archives with just a few clicks. Multiple files can be compressed or zipped using several methods such as LZMA, WavPack, PPMd, BZIP2, DEFLATE, etc. 

2. RAR : 
RAR stands for Roshal Archive Compressed file is a proprietary archive file format. It contains one or more files or folders together. 

However, unlike a normal folder on your hard drive, RAR files require third-party software to open and extract the contents of the archive. It’s a native file format of WinRAR archiver which stores multiple files in the compressed form – all you need to do is unpack its contents to access the files. RAR is generally better at data compression than the default support for ZIP files. 

Difference between ZIP and RAR : 
 

SR.NO ZIP RAR
1 ZIP is an archive file format created by Phil Katz as a standard format for lossless data compression. RAR is a proprietary archive file format for lossless data compression developed by Eugene Roshal.
2 It is free and open standard with many implementations and is supported almost everywhere. It is not free and requires a third party tool called WinRAR archiver to compress/decompress files.
3 The rate of compression of ZIP is lower than that of the RAR format. The rate of compression of RAR is better than that of the ZIP format.
4 ZIP offers a password based protection. RAR doesn’t offers a password based protection.
5 ZIP files can be created with several programs such as WinRAR, WinZIP, Freebyte Zip etc. RAR files are limited to only one program that is WinRAR.
6 ZIP uses the ZIP 2.0 encryption algorithm which is relatively weak. RAR uses the much efficient AES-128 encryption.
7 Filename extension are .zip and .zipx. Filename extension are .rar, .rev, .r00, .r01.
8 ZIP uses DEFLATE compression algorithm to compress data which is less efficient than the newer compression method. RAR uses a compression algorithm which is substantially better and efficient than the DEFLATE compression method.

Last Updated : 11 Aug, 2021
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