I downloaded and purchased the newest version of winrar through win-rar dot com instead of rarlab, was that good?
In hindsight, I checked the installer of win-rar dot com and it is a few kilobytes smaller than the one from rarlab?
The from rarlab says: this file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer and the one from rarlab doesn’t.
Good for a meme or three!
On a serious note, I checked wikipedia and confirmed the official site is https://www.rarlab.com/, which means you likely purchased a cracked version (unless they’re a reseller, of course).
I second VT.
When you hit imprint on rarlab, it directs me to win-rar puh, got lucky…
It’s just all so confusing.
Just why has the same version slightly different sizes…
Yeah that imprint page does take you to win-rar so it might be official.
I thought everyone moved to 7zip?
Once in while I run into multi-gigabyte zip files that free tools like 7zip and infozip do extract some files from, but clearly aren’t working properly. For some reason the commercial programs like WinRAR are able to handle those. The free options don’t seem to work as hard at handling all the edge cases created by buggy implementations out there.
The performance difference on massive files can be dramatic, too:
If you’re just an average user that needs to compress and decompress a few files here and there, 7zip works great. But if you’re working in IT, you’ll probably find you need it, sooner or later. Whether or not you buy a license:
There are two general ways of validating received binaries (or any file whatsoever):
check if it signed by expected vendor, for executable files signature on windows and validation is handled natively
Get file checksum from trusted third party and compare with generated checksum of received file manually. Oldschool and not used as much, since process cant be automated.
Second file in you original post has no digital signature whatsoever, so dont trust it. It has been repackaged by the seller.
Personally there has been absolutely no reason to buy winrar or winzip this or last decade, you can use 7zip instead. Winrar offers nothing that OSS does not and it probably survives only thanks to brand recognition alone.
Unless too onerous, just do chargeback and if possible then report the site them to winrar. Scammers like this should not be able to do business online.
https://www.7-zip.org/ - free and better in every way that counts.
win.rar GmbH has been the official distributor of WinRAR and RARLAB products since February 2002 and handles all support, marketing and sales related to WinRAR & rarlab.com. win.rar GmbH is registered in Germany and is represented worldwide by local partners in more than 70 countries on six continents. win.rar’s declared objective is to provide first-class quality support and to optimize its software to meet customer’s requirements in accordance with their valued feedback. For more information about WinRAR and win.rar GmbH please visit our website: www.win-rar.com
your fine… its an official partner based in germany.
Welcome to RARLAB, home of WinRAR and RAR archivers
look at the bottom of the page theres a footer with…
Copyright © 2002-2023 Alexander Roshal. All rights reserved.
win.rar GmbH - the official publisher for RARLAB products - handles all support, marketing and sales related to WinRAR and www.rarlab.com.
All the cool kids did. So did I.
whatever happened to WinZip?
/s
#7zip4Lyfe
pretty much this ^^
to many vulns for it to be considered safe to use in business.
so now they tend to market to small business and home users. 
Huh, I guess I presumed MS had brought them, and incorporated them to the file browser
2006, WinZip Computing was acquired by Corel Corporation.
they still own it today.
Now That’s a name I haven’t heard in a loooong time…
Guess I’m the weird one here. I bought WinRAR license for my personal use and I still love WinRAR more than 7zip. Its easier, faster, fails less.
That was very helpful, thank you a lot.
What I don’t really understand is why people do that “why did you buy Winrar lol” thing.
I mean, something you’d use regularly, you should support it financially.
Everybody wants everything for free now, tools, music but don’t mind spending 1000 bucks on a completely overpriced CPU or GPU, just a weird time to be in right now.
It’s the use of WinRAR that seems fairly strange to most (its popularity has declined dramatically over the years), not that you’re willing to pay for something. Nobody would bat an eye if you said you donated to 7zip.
The rest of the comments are just the usual meme that nobody pays for shareware… In the same vein as “Nobody drives in New York… There’s too much traffic.”
