What Is a RAR File and How Can It Be Opened?

So somebody has emailed you an important file, but you have known idea how to open it. Its extension, 'RAR', is something that is alien to you. You are intrigued as to what are the contents of this file are, and more importantly how can you open it?

Although the name may seem new and difficult to you, don't worry the process of opening this file will be familiar and easy for you. If you are an average computer user, then it will hardly take you 10 minutes to learn how to open a RAR file.

Before we begin talking about how to open a RAR file, we need to learn about what the.RAR extension file really is. RAR file, like traditional ZIP files, is an
extension used for compressed files. People who are familiar with ZIP files know that once a file is compressed its size decreases but its contents remain the same. Unzipping the file will make the contents return to original size. It is sort of like packing. Each compressed file needs to be uncompressed before it can be used.

The basic difference between ZIP files and RAR lies in the algorithm that is used by both programs. For an average user, this doesn't mean much. All you need to understand is that the files which are compressed using RAR will have a smaller size then the files which are compressed using ZIP. It may be one of the reasons you may have received RAR file in the first place, somebody must have wanted to send you a big file that couldn't fit in the email if they zipped it so they packed it with RAR.

So now we come back to the original question on your mind, what can you do to open an.RAR extension file? The first thing that you need to do is to download suitable software which is capable of opening an.RAR extension file. You can find a lot of software on the internet that possesses the capability of opening such a file. Once you have downloaded the software you chose, all you need to do is follow the step by step instruction that is available in the program for extracting the file.

You can also compress your own files to RAR using suitable software. RAR provides a smaller size, and greater security then ZIP files. If you're not good with these things, you can use the set-up wizard in your software that will take over the difficult steps for you. It's as easy as opening a ZIP file!