Windows PCs finally get native support for RAR files

If you download a lot of .Zip files and extract the contents with WinRar, Windows 11 will make your life easier. Microsoft has confirmed that RAR files have native support on Windows 11 PCs. WinRar has been a popular software for Windows users who want to download large files to be shared via email or other platforms.

Bringing native support for .RAR would be a big convenience for Windows PC users who don’t need any extra steps to download content in the near future. In fact, the majority of WinRAR users pay to use the software, which is not needed when native support is available. Microsoft says that .RAR file support will be introduced with a new version later this year.

In addition to .rar files, Windows 11 also gets native support for gz, 7-zip and other file formats. “We’ve added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and more for those using the open source libarchive project,” said Panos Panay, Windows’ principal product vendor, in a blog post this week.

Microsoft uses an open source project that allows the company to work with different file formats and make them compatible with Windows 11.

It will be interesting to see how WinRaR decides to act on this announcement, especially since many people pay money to use file compression software. And what will happen to those who have already paid for WinRaR now that it is freely available for all Windows 11 PCs.

I think people still using a Windows 10 PC will need the paid version of WinRaR to compress files, which still leaves the company with millions of Windows users to help build their business. WinRaR was released in 1995, so it’s about time that Windows computers were compatible with the format with other file compression versions on the market.

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