Zip Vs. RAR: Understand the Difference Between ZIP and RAR
Various types of file formats exist in the computer systems that we use. Out of all of them, we use the archive file formats for storing various types of files into a single container. RAR and ZIP are basically archive file formats. There is a significant difference between ZIP and RAR. Here, ZIP is a standard type of format that any OS can enable. On the other hand, we need various supplementary tools to process any given RAR file format.
What is ZIP?
ZIP is a type of archive file format that provides support for lossless data compression. Phil Katz developed this format back in 1989. The ZIP format is pretty popular among all, and several software utilities support it. For example, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows come with built-in support for ZIP. The best part about the ZIP file format is that one can easily open it with any of the programs that create these files.
In other words, ZIP files act as containers of data- with various files compressed together (zipped) with the help of Zip compression. The ZIP archives, along with file compression, also help in file encryption (with passwords). They can also split the archives in no time. One can zip or compress various files together using various methods like DEFLATE, BZIP2, PPMd, WavPack, LZMA, etc.
What is RAR?
The term RAR files is an acronym for Roshal Archive Compressed files. It is basically a file format of proprietary archive type. A RAR file is capable of containing various files as well as folders together. But you can’t open a RAR file just like that. You would need third-party software for opening and extracting the content present in the archive.
In other words, RAR is a type of native format (file format) of the archiver of WinRAR that can easily store multiple files after compressing them. All we need to do here is unpack the content present in a RAR file format for accessing the files present in it. In general, the RAR format works way better than the ZIP format default support in compressing data.
Difference Between ZIP and RAR
| Parameters | ZIP | RAR |
| Meaning and Basics | ZIP is a standard type of file format that can easily work with various types of implementations. | RAR is a proprietary type of file format that requires any third-party software to function on any given system. |
| Developer | Phil Katz developed the ZIP file format. | Eugene Roshal developed the RAR file format. |
| Year of Invention | The ZIP files came into existence in 1986. | The RAR files came into existence in 1993. |
| Rate of Compression | The rate of compression in ZIP files is low. | The rate of compression in RAR files is high. |
| Support for Software | The operating system can alone handle the decompression, opening, and extraction of the ZIP files. | One requires various third-party software for handling the RAR files. |
| Decomposition | The process of decomposition is impractical in the case of ZIP files. | Decomposition is possible in the case of RAR files. |
| Extension and Filename | The .zipx and .zip is the filename extension for ZIP format. | The .r01, .r00, .rev, .rar are the filename extensions for RAR format. |
| Protection (Password-Based) | The ZIP files provide password-based protection for its content. | The RAR files do not provide password-based protection for the content present in them. |
| Programs for Creation | One can create ZIP files using various programs like Freebyte Zip, WinZIP, WinRAR, etc. | The creation of RAR programs depends on just one program, i.e., WinRAR. |
| Encryption Algorithm | This file format makes use of the ZIP 2.0 algorithm for encryption. It is relatively weaker. | The RAR file format makes use of a much more efficient algorithm for encryption, known as AES-128. |
| Compression Algorithm | The ZIP file format makes use of the DEFLATE algorithm for compressing data. It is much less efficient as compared to the newer methods of compression. | The RAR file format makes use of a compression algorithm. It is comparatively much more efficient and substantially better than the DEFLATE method of compression in ZIP. |
| The Popularity of File Format | The ZIP format is comparatively much more popular because it came into existence much long ago. Thus, a lot of archive files present on the internet are ZIP files. | The RAR file format is comparatively new. Thus, it is not as popular as the ZIP format. Still, it is very popular. |
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