Is Winrar or 7zip quicker at unpacking RAR archives?

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Is Winrar or 7zip quicker at unpacking RAR archives?

don't know about which is quicker, but winrar can unzip almost any archive file in existence (including 7z format) so I usually stick with winrar for the versatility...

Speeds should be very simular: 7-Zip uses UnRAR source code.

They're both quite similar, thoug the copy of 7Zip that I downloaded almost a year ago also came with an uninvited guest in the form of a Trojan that was caught and removed along with 7Zip. --Use WinRar.

For unpacking RAR, they're the same thing.

WinRAR is only a 40-day trial shareware, while 7-zip is free software. Use 7-zip.

A virus or trojan can be attached to any executable, including installers. That's why you should only download installers from reputable websites like download.com. You should always check the md5 hash and scan the file if you get it from somewhere else.

7-zip itself is not malicious. You can examine the code from sourceforge.net and compile it yourself if you're that paranoid. Where did you get your infected copy?

Sadly, the site that I downloaded it from was a reputable site. I forget which one, but it was either download.com, cnet.com, or sourceforge.net.

That's why I ALWAYS download directly from the developer's site. It's much more secure and you can make sure that you're downloading the latest version.

The problem is how you tell for sure which site is the developer's. There are a lot of malicious websites offering downloads that pretend to be something they aren't. That's why I recommended using a reputable central repository site.

@Fogman: How did you detect the trojan? Anti-spyware products occasionally report false positives. Even worse there are a whole bunch of "rouge" anti-spyware products that don't really work and are themselves malware.

Easy solution to your trojan problems - use GNU/Linux.

You mena spybot? That's what it did for me...

The Firewall I'm behind logged trasmission to an outside IP address , as well as that IP address repeatedly attempting to acces my system via a blocked port. I uninstalled 7Zip as that was the onlything that I had downloaded for a while at that time figuring that it caused the problem, downloaded the current version of Spybot with Teatimer (Spybot's anti trojan resident) ran the software, and it more or less took care of the trojan. --No problems since.




True as I already have Linux installed on another computer, however the audio software that I use will not run under WINE, and the GPL'ed alternatives do not have the automation/edit functions and VST plugins that I use with my current system. Also, current Linux 2.6.xx Kernels still have,(To my knowlege, at any rate) dodgy 80211 support.

Furthermore, I don't plan on dual booting on this notebook, as I will have limited hard drive space, as well as Linux's, ( to my current knowlege) continual lack of write support to NTFS partitions.

If I was going to use another OS on this computer, I'd use OSX.

Yeah, that's one of them. The original spybot s&d used to be one of the best freeware anti-spyware programs. The spyware evolved faster than spybot though, so it's not very good anymore.

Even worse, there are now a bunch of (illegal) spybot clones. They usually use the same database and user interface as the original, but just change the name. Sometimes they actually work, but just change to donation link to someone else. The other ones are malware themselves and may even download more on your machine even while it helps you remove the "competition"! Some of these even keep the same name as the original complete with a matching website knockoff. You probably got one of these. Some of these websites have even been known to show up on Google before the original!

Like I said to tomadao, sometimes it's hard to tell which website is actually from the developer, so I still recommend only downloading from reputable sites.

@Fogman: from the way you discovered it, it sounds like your trojan could have come from anywhere. You don't even have to install anything to get one. Browser vulnerabilities are discovered all the time. You may have gotten it just by accidentally visiting a malicious website. From what you've told me, there's no reason but circumstance to suppose it was caused by an infected 7-zip installer. From my experience free software is generally safer than freeware or especially shareware, which has gotten especially dangerous nowadays.

This could very well be true, which would be a shame as I use Opera or Firefox for the internet. I prefer Opera though, as I've set it to register as IE. --There have been a few times when I've watched websites try to stealth install malware via the progress bar, and laughed as it failed.

As far as Spybot is concerned, it's generally not that horrible, the problem though is that a lot of Malware producers have cloned their own version of it, and and left out a lot of definintions in the software's malware database, or have subverted the software altogeather to the point where their version is actually Malware in it's own right. --Some versions even make you pay for it.

I have no idea of whether Spybot is Open Source or if it's been reverse engineered by the scammers, however, if it is Open Source, this could explain why there are so many clones available, and how it can be subverted into malware. --Welcome to the 'Dark Side' of Open Source.

I always run my browser under Sandboxie or in a virtual machine. (Except when using Internet Explorer for windows updates). It's unlikely anything could get through both the browser and sandbox at once. You can also use Sandboxie for testing potentially malicious files. Spybot is proprietary freeware, not open-source so they must have reverse engineered it somehow. As for the "dark-side" argument, I think it's quite the reverse. Open-source software can proven safe, because you can examine the source code and even compile it yourself. Any malicious clone would have to close the source to protect the secret. Even legitimate commercial software can be malicious, but very hard to detect. (remember the Sony rootkit fiasco?) Open source is probably the safest there is.

Thanks for clearing that up with Spybot. I'll stick with the 'Dark Side' argument, and here's why.

Even though Open Source software grants everybody the potential to compile their own software from the available source code, the average end user isn't going to do this because it's not an expedient thing, they want the binaries installed, as most end users have no interest in using a compiler, or for that matter have no idea how to compile software from source code with a compiler such as GCC. They can't read, and have no desire to read source code. --This is where the subterfuge comes in.

Scam artists can take advatage of this by rewriting code as they see fit. This can be problematic with software under the GNU copyleft agreement, because scammers would have to make their code available, if they followed the rules of the GNU agreement. Then again, scam artists being who they are, don't feel compelled to follow any rules other than their own to maximise their profit at other people's expense. The GNU arraingement stipulates that coders who utilise GNU code are going to be honest, and furnish, or at least make available their modifications to GNU code. Scam artists aren't honest, and don't play by the rules.

If scam artists can decompile/ reverse engineer proprietary software like Spybot, with relative impunity, and make their own versions of it, what's to stop them from doing the same with code that they don't have to go through the trouble of decompiling binaries, and debugging the code? Why would they go through that hassle when the code is readily available seemingly free for the taking? --Scam artists don't feel the need to play by the rules that everybody else plays by because they feel that rules do not apply to them, why would they care about resharing code that they've altered for their own benefit?

Also, assuming that these people due have a shred of conscience, they would opt for modifying software that utilises a BSD style licence, where you don't have to furnish altered code.