Rar Sucks
There I’ve said it now. There is nothing wrong the Rar format, it may even been slightly better at compressing that Zip. So why does it suck then, the algorithm for creating a Rar file is proprietary, this means that no other applications are able to create Rar files other than the RARLabs tools (WinRAR etc). So everytime you see a Rar file you know that WinRAR was behind its creation.
Now look at say Zip, the format is just as capable of compression as Rar. The algorithm for creating and unpacking Zip files is Free! This means anyone can make a program that compresses Zip files, anyone can make a program that unpacks Zip files.
I would push you all to consider the utilities you use and look to see if they are truely free. For every program we support that isn’t free we dimish the OSS movement just that little bit.
You are right!
Everyone should use 7Zip, many times it compresses better, and it’s open source.
Whilst 7zip is a superior compression, it can be rather slow decompressing (though that is becoming less of a problem with multi-core systems).
I hate (win)rar, every time I download a big file (say 4gb+) it keeps failing at random parts!!! I think is a problem with the Linux implementation