Battle WinRar or 7Zip? What's your favourite?

SeriousHoax

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Mar 16, 2019
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Divine_Barakah

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May 10, 2019
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F

ForgottenSeer 85179

I am happy with PeaZip
Sadly PeaZip doesn't care about Mark of the Web (MOTW) / zone identifier (same like 7-Zip):

Does Winrar have mark of the web feature?
Nope: WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files

Currently i use 7-Zip cause it's free (and OpenSource) and provide all needed features like encryption but sadly ignore MOTW.

Bandizip isn't a alternative for me as they use online installer (highly unsecure in my opinion) and also put Ads in new free version. And as we see in past, Ads can be malicious so no thanks.
 

Zartarra

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May 9, 2019
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I used Bandizip but the new version is not my flavor. I switched back to 7zip. Winzip or Powerachiver are good options if you choose a licensed product.
 

polishpatriot

Level 2
Feb 4, 2020
86
It comes down to personal preference. One will not offer any significant compression\decompression advantages over the other during typical home use. It comes down to which GUI you like better. Really.

In this day and age, MOTW for security purposes is a joke.

And I find it hard to believe that people here are willing to pay $30 for WinRAR and yet they will buy a fully-pirated or illegal AV\IS license on eBay for $4 precisely because they don't want to pay.
 

roger_m

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Dec 4, 2014
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And I find it hard to believe that people here are willing to pay $30 for WinRAR and yet they will buy a fully-pirated or illegal AV\IS license on eBay for $4 precisely because they don't want to pay.
Often (although not always) cheap licenses for security software on eBay are genuine. But ones for other software are often pirated.
 

polishpatriot

Level 2
Feb 4, 2020
86
Often (although not always) cheap licenses for security software on eBay are genuine. But ones for other software are often pirated.

The eBay licenses are often a key from a license that has X activations on Y devices and is not meant to be re-sold. The scammer sells the key Y number of times to individual buyers. So in the eyes of the publisher re-selling the license is illegal.

In the vast majority of cases, the cheap Microsoft product licenses on eBay are from scammers who sell Volume License keys from MSDN (now called a Visual Studio subscription) - which once again - Microsoft considers illegal.

In an MSDN subscription you get Volume License keys that can be activated 20 times, and you get 5 separate Retail keys that each can be activated 5 times. Sometimes the Microsoft License servers will allow keys to be activate more times than these written permissions.

Also, there is a huge black market for stolen Microsoft Volume License keys. $4 is nothing to an Australian, an American or European. But $4 to a Chinese or Indian person, it can be an entire day's wages.

95+ % of the time if you actually bother to have the software publisher confirm that they key you just purchased on eBay is completely legit, they will say "Nope."
 
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TairikuOkami

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95+ % of the time if you actually bother to have the software publisher confirm that they key you just purchased on eBay is completely legit, they will say "Nope."
Because they can not admit it, otherwise virtually everyone would go that way, but some confirmed behind the closed door, that they are actually reselling those licences. Many people can not afford the full price, but the more customers they have the better. It is a form of a silent advertising. Free AVs work the same way, as honeypots and getting the brand known. There are thousands AVs out there, but only the most popular get known and sold.
 

polishpatriot

Level 2
Feb 4, 2020
86
Because they can not admit it, otherwise virtually everyone would go that way, but some confirmed behind the closed door, that they are actually reselling those licences. Many people can not afford the full price, but the more customers they have the better. It is a form of a silent advertising. Free AVs work the same way, as honeypots and getting the brand known. There are thousands AVs out there, but only the most popular get known and sold.

Most publishers will indirectly admit that they intended their softs to be purchased only in regions of the world where the citizens could afford to pay.

They don't want illegal selling of their products. I know Microsoft certainly doesn't. And they will also state that only the full price supports their product.

A license sold at anything less than full price is a real liability. The purpose of charging for the license is not just for the software itself, but also the back-end operations and on-going maintenance.

If I owned a software publishing company, I sure wouldn't want 1 billion users that can only pay $4 for the license. We'd go out of business in no time.
 

TairikuOkami

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They don't want illegal selling of their products. I know Microsoft certainly doesn't.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once said on the news, that he would rather, if people were using illegal Windows than moving to MAC/Linux. You can clean install 10 and activate it for free for the same reason. MS keeps saying, that they will disable that option, but it is still there, because they want people to use Windows 10, no matter the price. I bought Windows 8 Pro from MS for $15/$25 and they are still working as 10 Pro to this day.
A license sold at anything less than full price is a real liability. The purpose of charging for the license is not just for the software itself, but also the back-end operations and on-going maintenance.
It is not the price that pays for it anymore, that is just a little annoyance. There are online games/software, that are free and yet they earn millions.
Like bank fees, I have a bank, where I did not have to pay a single cent for fees for like 10 years, I have 3 cards and yet the bank profits from me.
 
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polishpatriot

Level 2
Feb 4, 2020
86
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once said on the news, that he would rather, if people were using illegal Windows than moving to MAC/Linux. You can clean install 10 and activate it for free for the same reason. MS keeps saying, that they will disable that option, but it is still there, because they want people to use Windows 10, no matter the price. I bought Windows 8 Pro from MS for $15/$25 and they are still working as 10 Pro to this day.

Steve Ballmer once called Linux a cancer. And he stated he would do anything to prevent people form using Linux or Mac. He was despised at Microsoft to such an extent that he was pushed out.

Microsoft is in a complete monopoly position give the fact that Windows is installed on nearly every single PC manufactured today. So Microsoft is the last organization that needs any help from people selling pirated, illegal keys cheaply. And yes, Microsoft does mind if you try to cheap-scate them by buying a pirated or illegal Windows upgrade license. I know as I was just involved in bringing down a Taiwanese Windows and Office product scammer.

Please do not say things that are not true. Microsoft does not want people paying a penny less than the full, published, official price. Microsoft actively hunts down and deactivates illegal Microsoft product prices. The fact of the matter is that software piracy happens on such a large scale that Microsoft is forced to focus on the most egregious offenders - such as the Chinese selling Volume Licenses as Retail. Therefore, a lot of piracy goes un-checked by the publisher.

And Microsoft has said that Windows has now become its lowest priority. Furthermore, their future model for Windows will be to charge an annual subscription.

It is not the price that pays for it anymore, that is just a little annoyance. There are online games/software, that are free and yet they earn millions.
Like bank fees, I have a bank, where I did not have to pay a single cent for fees for like 10 years, I have 3 cards and yet the bank profits from me.

The price sure does pay for security, productivity and most any other software. Whether it is a one-time or annual subscription fee doesn't matter. Comparing those software to games is like comparing prunes to pineapples. Security, productivity and other software doesn't have in-game micro-transactions. It's tall those add-on transactions that keep the game industry cash registers busy.

The official position of most any software publisher is that unofficial, unauthorized key sales is software piracy and the people doing it is criminal activity. It's the reason that media have been on a storm for the past decade about all the copyright infringement. Yes, that copyright is the basis of any software claims as well. It isn't just limited to media.
 
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