[HN Gopher] WinRAR zero-day exploited since April to hack tradin...
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       WinRAR zero-day exploited since April to hack trading accounts
        
       Author : mikece
       Score  : 153 points
       Date   : 2023-08-23 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
        
       | getarofilter wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | milliams wrote:
       | Is it really a "zero-day" if it's being used months later?
        
         | dxd wrote:
         | I think it means that this exploit has been possible since the
         | application was made, the zeroth day.
        
           | efdee wrote:
           | It doesn't. Technically, zero-day in the context of exploits
           | means the exploit was circulating and/or being used before
           | the authors of the attacked piece of software were made aware
           | of the vulnerability (or before the vulnerability was made
           | public, or before the day a patch was made available,
           | depending on who you ask).
        
         | wolfi1 wrote:
         | it's a zero-day when it is not patched but still exploited
        
         | arboles wrote:
         | I can stretch the definition of zero day to make a point. Zero
         | day is a surprise exploit that gets used before it is
         | discovered. WinRAR has not fixed this exploit, and since it's
         | proprietary software we don't even know if the company is even
         | aware or even cares.
         | 
         | It's also alike a zero day in the other sense that protections
         | against the exploit haven't been developed. While in a real
         | zero day that's because not enough time has passed for
         | volunteers to develop protections, the case here is proprietary
         | software can't be modified by volunteers.
        
         | deelowe wrote:
         | Not if the devs weren't aware. Zero day borrows it's
         | terminology from contracts where zero day notice means that no
         | prior notification is needed. A zero day exploit is one that's
         | circulating in the wild prior to their having been a formal
         | disclosure.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | leonidasv wrote:
       | The worst part is that WinRAR does not have autoupdate built-in,
       | so millions of people will remain vulnerable for years.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Auto update could allow an attacker to push a malicious update
         | to everyone.
        
         | ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
         | Windows is getting native support for rar, 7zip etc. soon. Of
         | course, like Microsoft Defender, it will also have zero days.
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
           | colejohnson66 wrote:
           | > Given its Russian roots, at this point I'm nervous about
           | updating WinRAR or otherwise continuing to use it. I wish I
           | had a day or two to get 7Zip to build.
           | 
           | If you're worried about backdoors, why did it take until this
           | news for you to change your preference?
           | 
           | Also, 7zip is available prebuilt; You don't need to compile
           | it yourself.
        
             | chfalck wrote:
             | I've not been able to find a signed distribution of 7-zip,
             | so I imagine they feel safer building the repo locally to
             | make sure they're at least not running a compromised .exe
             | (not suggesting the code itself is guaranteed to be virus
             | free, but this does feel safer in my mind)
        
               | ElectricalUnion wrote:
               | > I've not been able to find a signed distribution of
               | 7-zip
               | 
               | Since when would a signed binary help when your "opsec"
               | says it's the software itself that is compromised?
               | 
               | Software can still be compromised if it is compromised
               | before being signed.
               | 
               | Assuming you somehow trust the source code and not the
               | binary, in fact, you're better off compiling it yourself
               | and checking if the non-signed software you get is
               | similar enough to the binary you can get from others -
               | Assuming of course you can actually reach reliable
               | reproducible builds with a Windows build chain, a thing
               | that last time I checked was horrible and flaky.
        
               | gabereiser wrote:
               | _apt update && apt install 7zip_
        
             | gdy wrote:
             | [dead]
        
           | heap_perms wrote:
           | > 30 million Americans marched in opposition to the Iraq war
           | 
           | And it was an illegal. George W. Bush is a war criminal.
        
           | Matl wrote:
           | > Given its Russian roots
           | 
           | > At this point, though, running unsigned Windows binaries
           | built by Russian nationals
           | 
           | Are we not dangerously close to scapegoating Russians?
           | Imagine if everything American was viewed with suspicion
           | after the Iraq Invasion or its athletes prevented from
           | representing the US in international games.
           | 
           | It makes one wonder. I think some Americans are still reeling
           | from Cold War propaganda honestly.
           | 
           | EDIT:
           | 
           | > 30 million Americans marched in opposition to the Iraq war.
           | What did you do when your country invaded Ukraine, besides
           | attempting to justify it through logical fallacies?
           | 
           | I am not Russian but I can see xenophobia when I see it.
           | 
           | As for your claim that many Americans protested the Iraq War,
           | they did. It made zero difference. Many Russians protested
           | also, it made zero difference.
        
             | cced wrote:
             | Hey watch it pal, you're going against the narrative and
             | outside the range of acceptable discourse.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | cynicalsecurity wrote:
         | The worst part is to use a closed source proprietary black box
         | software when there are tons of great open source alternatives,
         | such as 7zip or even just plain good old gzip, bzip2, etc.
        
           | Strom wrote:
           | Just to be clear, 7zip, gzip, bzip2 and others all have their
           | own CVE's with arbitrary code execution. Open source software
           | is not immune from these flaws.
           | 
           | You can argue for your political beliefs, sure, but let's be
           | honest and not claim that there are any security benefits.
        
             | gorenb wrote:
             | Open source does have some security benefits. If billions
             | of (mostly) good people who want to help can read the code,
             | they _can_ find vulnerabilities more easily. Having so many
             | contributors _does_ help.
        
               | Strom wrote:
               | That is a popular fantasy story. The reality of almost
               | all open source software is that nobody reads the code
               | and the primary author is struggling to find the time to
               | keep up with maintenance.
               | 
               | What's more, doing security review is very hard. You
               | can't just casually read a bit of code. You need to
               | deeply understand the surrounding context. People who
               | have the capability to do that aren't going around
               | providing that service for free.
               | 
               | -- More reading for the curious: https://www.explainxkcd.
               | com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency
        
               | arboles wrote:
               | Well I'm quite motivated to fix this vulnerability in
               | WinRAR, but I can't.
        
               | Strom wrote:
               | You can, just download the latest version.
        
               | arboles wrote:
               | What if the software is abandoned or badly maintained? It
               | took the company until August to fix it, there's the
               | possibility it would be faster if it was Free software.
        
           | MikusR wrote:
           | There currently is no alternative to the built in recovery
           | records.
        
             | msh wrote:
             | There have been a good open alternative for longer than
             | WinRAR have had recovery records. It's called par files and
             | there are implementations for Mac/win/Linux.
        
       | bobbob1921 wrote:
       | while, the article does not make this clear, I assume that, when
       | dealing with an infected rar archive, if you right click, and
       | choose extract, the malicious payload does not get executed.
       | 
       | It seems you only get infected if you double click a malicious
       | rat archive then within WinRAR, double click one of the
       | legitimate PDF or image files.
       | 
       | Either way, it's a bad scenario - I just would like to know. Tks
        
       | iav wrote:
       | WinRAR is (was?) developed in Russia, so it always seemed like a
       | great way for the Russian FSB to hack foreign systems.
        
         | LinuxBender wrote:
         | There is a tremendous amount of software created and maintained
         | by Russian developers running on Windows, MacOS and Linux. One
         | example would be NGinx which runs a good deal of websites on
         | the internet. NGinx is now owned by F5 but still maintain the
         | same developers. There is probably a better way to verify code,
         | risk rank flaws and assign a level of trust. This should be an
         | ongoing _and ideally automated_ effort regardless of who is
         | contributing code or hardware.
         | 
         | I personally would like to see _AI_ be able to review entire
         | code bases and see the bigger picture because state sponsored
         | lawful intercepts are rarely one piece of code but rather
         | require multiple pieces of code _and sometimes hardware_ to
         | work in conjunction to form the back door.
        
           | kgeist wrote:
           | Yesterday I learned that a lot of crucial stuff in Postgres
           | was developed by Russians (the list I saw was quite
           | extensive). So if you run nginx+Postgres (like half the
           | Internet?) then WinRAR is least of your concerns
        
             | mcast wrote:
             | I've met many incredibly talented eastern European
             | engineers, who seem to overwhelmingly enjoy low-level
             | programming (compilers, database internals, etc.). I don't
             | see the concern.
        
               | thefifthsetpin wrote:
               | The Russian government has recently shown itself to be
               | willing and even eager to use coercive tactics against
               | its own people.
               | 
               | The trust issues with software developed by Russians
               | isn't that the engineers are Russian. It's that the
               | engineers and their families are currently in Russia.
        
               | ThrowAway1922A wrote:
               | I don't what to get accused of whataboutism, but when it
               | comes to software if this is the bar we're setting than
               | no software can be considered safe.
        
               | theshrike79 wrote:
               | They live in a country where you can literally get
               | arrested for walking around with a blank piece of paper.
               | Just because you MIGHT write something subversive on it.
               | 
               | The ability of the Russian government to lean on
               | incredibly talented developers is extremely large.
        
             | dewey wrote:
             | Difference being that PG / nginx are open source and
             | audited unlike WinRAR.
        
               | LinuxBender wrote:
               | That's a fair point. Perhaps a solution could be that if
               | someone were willing to pick up the par2cmdline code base
               | and work with the 7-zip developers to merge it into their
               | command line and GUI then there may not be many reasons
               | left to utilize WinRAR.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | nirui wrote:
         | How is that conclusion came to mind? Did they wrote the entire
         | code in Russian or the code just don't run on Russian
         | computers?
         | 
         | If you don't know, this is not even the first file compression
         | related exploit. "Zip Slip"(0) for example, is just one year
         | old, and there are many of them out there.
         | 
         | [Zip Slip]: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-21675
        
           | jwilk wrote:
           | "Zip Slip" was a term made up in 2018 (see
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17237295) for a class of
           | vulnerabilities that's been known since at least 2001.
        
         | xxpor wrote:
         | TIL, I was thrown off by the fact that it's a GmbH into
         | thinking they were German.
        
           | SillyUsername wrote:
           | Well this seems to suggest they're German https://www.win-
           | rar.com/cookies.html?&L=0
           | 
           | The original author Eugene Roshal (iirc) isn't.
        
       | chankstein38 wrote:
       | This may be a good place to ask this. Legitimate question, why do
       | people still use WinRAR and 7zip and stuff? Zip is built into
       | literally everything. I don't really want to have to download
       | another application to unpack something I get.
       | 
       | Is there a good reason? It frequently feels like it's used just
       | to make extra work for the downloader
        
         | izackp wrote:
         | 7zip supports aes-256 encryption on zip files. Windows does
         | not.
        
         | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
         | .7z gets way better compression than .zip, in my experience.
         | Plus, 7-zip can handle the odd archive here and there that I'm
         | forced to download on my corporate PC that Windows cannot. Like
         | a tarball.
         | 
         | Finally, the built-in integrity hashing that 7-zip adds to the
         | right-click context menu in Windows is crazy useful.
         | 
         | So to answer your question: there are plenty of legitimate
         | reasons to still use 7zip. I can't think of any legitimate
         | reasons to still use WinRAR, though...
        
           | rowbin wrote:
           | Interesting, never heard tarballs being classified as odd
           | before. They are still widely used.
        
             | Frost1x wrote:
             | If it's something you intend to package to a non-Windows
             | user then sure it's not odd. I send file archives to non-
             | tech users all the time internally. I absolutely do not
             | tarball them, I zip them. When it comes to less tech savvy
             | users, a tarball is definitely an odd format to deal with.
        
           | distantsounds wrote:
           | WinRAR can _create_ RAR files. In fact it's one of the only
           | pieces of software that can. The decompression algo is free,
           | so it's implemented in 7zip. compressing files in the format
           | is what they want you to pay for.
        
             | AdmiralAsshat wrote:
             | Sure...but in this day and age I almost consider .rar a
             | "read-only" format. There will be plenty of RAR archives
             | that people are keeping around for historical reasons, but,
             | why would you still be _creating_ WinRAR archives when
             | there are better options?
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | > there are better options?
               | 
               | which are?..
               | 
               | If you need the interop then you can't beat ZIP
               | 
               | If you need a built-in recovery record (and find a
               | working decompressing program 10-20 years later) then you
               | can't beat RAR
               | 
               | If your corporate is insane and forbids 7z because it's
               | FOSS/made by Russian then you can't beat RAR
               | 
               | Which are those 'better options'?
        
               | MikusR wrote:
               | Your corporate should look up who makes WinRar.
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | Thanks, I know who and where from Eugene is.
        
               | kupopuffs wrote:
               | tar? XD
        
               | tinus_hn wrote:
               | On Usenet RAR/PAR is still the standard
        
             | dicytea wrote:
             | > The decompression algo is free
             | 
             | Is the algorithm itself actually available somewhere? IIRC
             | 7zip had compatibility issues with _some_ RAR files out
             | there that opens up just fine with WinRAR, so I assumed
             | they had to figure out the algo themselves.
        
               | forgotpwd16 wrote:
               | >Is the algorithm itself actually available somewhere?
               | 
               | https://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm
               | 
               | The source has the following restriction:
               | UnRAR source code may be used in any software to handle
               | RAR archives without limitations free of charge, but
               | cannot be           used to develop RAR (WinRAR)
               | compatible archiver and to           re-create RAR
               | compression algorithm, which is proprietary.
               | Distribution of modified UnRAR source code in separate
               | form           or as a part of other software is
               | permitted, provided that           full text of this
               | paragraph, starting from "UnRAR source code"
               | words, is included in license, or in documentation if
               | license           is not available, and in source code
               | comments of resulting package.
        
           | housemusicfan wrote:
           | > Finally, the built-in integrity hashing that 7-zip adds to
           | the right-click context menu in Windows is crazy useful.
           | 
           | Ironic, isn't 7-Zip the program where the developer has
           | famously refused to provide download hashes or digital
           | signatures of the release binaries?
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | One advantage of WinRAR over 7-Zip is the option to add
           | recovery data and data parity recovery files. This can of
           | course be accomplished on any file using PAR2 but it saved a
           | step which some people liked. Not everyone needs this option.
           | I create PAR files when I back up important archives to
           | multiple external drives. par2cmdline [1] is in some Linux
           | repositories.
           | 
           | [1] - https://github.com/Parchive/par2cmdline [In need of a
           | new maintainer]
        
             | MikusR wrote:
             | MultiPar is the continuation for Windows
             | https://github.com/Yutaka-Sawada/MultiPar
             | 
             | And this for Linux
             | https://github.com/animetosho/par2cmdline-turbo
        
             | bandergirl wrote:
             | I may be wrong, but rar files appear to be recoverable when
             | the download has not finished, but last time I tried I
             | could not do anything with a partial 7z archive.
        
         | cynicalsecurity wrote:
         | Have you ever tried unpacking files with special characters
         | from zip? Like umlauts, etc? Especially between different
         | machines. It produces broken file names.
         | 
         | Zip doesn't store access rights, unlike tar. That's why tar
         | gzip is so popular on Linux.
        
         | WeylandYutani wrote:
         | I'm an old school pirate and have a cracked winrar 6.1 on my
         | PC. It just works. Old habits and all that.
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | Microsoft is (finally) adding native support for
         | tar/gz/bz2/rar/7z (edit: and xz/zstd) to Windows, so third
         | party apps shouldn't be required for much longer.
         | 
         | https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2023/08/18/announc...
         | 
         | It's only available on the preview channel for now but it's
         | coming.
        
           | tssva wrote:
           | Command line support for these formats has existed in Windows
           | for multiple years via bsdtar which has shipped with Windows
           | for quite a while now.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | hulitu wrote:
             | Huh ? Parent was talking about bz2, xz.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | tssva wrote:
               | The comment originally mentioned tar/gz/bz2/rar/7z
               | support being added to Windows. bsdtar supports all of
               | these.
        
           | chankstein38 wrote:
           | Niiiice!
        
           | xxpor wrote:
           | Have they added lz4 and xz as well?
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | Please, not even Linux distros add those by default yet.
             | Microsoft won't consider it until at least 2030.
        
             | jsheard wrote:
             | I don't have a preview channel install handy to check, but
             | they're using libarchive so here's the full list assuming
             | they expose everything it supports:
             | 
             | https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive#supported-formats
             | 
             | edit: amended my last reply, Microsofts latest blog post
             | says that XZ and Zstd are also supported.
        
               | lostmsu wrote:
               | Great, a new attack vector.
               | 
               | Don't get me wrong, I love that they add support for more
               | open source formats, but decompressors (especially
               | written in C) are one of the most common sources of bugs
               | basically everywhere. I wish they would sandbox it, but
               | they probably won't.
        
               | jsheard wrote:
               | Having the decompressor updated automatically by Windows
               | Update is a significant step up from the current status
               | quo of installing WinRAR or 7zip once and then usually
               | never updating it for years because it has to be done
               | manually. Microsoft will probably have more diligence in
               | hardening the binaries than 7zip too, which resisted
               | enabling basic exploit mitigations like DEP and ASLR
               | until 2018 and _still_ doesn 't enable the more advanced
               | MSVC mitigations as far as I'm aware. There's no excuse
               | for that in an application that's expected to handle
               | untrusted files.
        
               | MikusR wrote:
               | Covered by Microsoft Bug Bounty Program
        
               | tssva wrote:
               | This is implemented via libarchive which has actually
               | shipped along with bsdtar for years now in Windows. They
               | are just adding Windows explorer support for them.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | msla wrote:
         | I wonder how much of Windows' profusion of archive formats is a
         | hangover from the MS-DOS archiver wars.
        
         | jabroni_salad wrote:
         | winrar is really good if you wish to split a big file into
         | smaller chunks, since it has parity features.
        
         | MisterBastahrd wrote:
         | 7zip is great if you are zipping up your own data.
         | 
         | RAR is used on the internet because large files get broken up
         | into smaller parts to get transferred and you can use RAR to
         | determine whether your compressed fileset is legitimate or if
         | it needs repair. That's where recovery volumes come in. If it
         | won't unrar, then you can just add enough recovery files until
         | it does.
        
         | kwanbix wrote:
         | I upvoted you, as people are so intolerant today that downvote
         | anything they don't like, like spoiled kids. It is crazy.
         | 
         | That said, RAR and 7zip compress much, much better than ZIP
         | (faster or more).
        
           | chankstein38 wrote:
           | Thank you, I was worried about that. I wonder about this a
           | lot and HN always thought like the right place to ask!
        
         | antihero wrote:
         | Any reason that LZMA support isn't build into Windows? I think
         | there's maybe some licensing issues with RAR perhaps.
        
         | rjsw wrote:
         | I have been told that 7zip handles long pathnames better than
         | the zip functionality built in to Windows.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | katbyte wrote:
         | both provide much better compression then zip, and when you are
         | compressing large amounts of compressible data that is
         | important.
         | 
         | i personally use rar (not winrar because i am not on windows)
         | because it also: locks created archive, tests it, and adds a
         | recovery record so if a few bits or even bytes flip it can be
         | recovered.
         | 
         | rar also has a ton of options to customize compression like
         | splitting into multiple files (i think 7z does this too as
         | well)
        
         | josefresco wrote:
         | .RAR file support
         | 
         | The Windows zip tool failed just yesterday because some of my
         | file names had illegal characters yet 7zip/winrar handled it no
         | problem.
         | 
         | Better compression / more options
         | 
         | Beyond that, there's not much I need it for but every time I
         | remove it ... I end up needed it shortly!
        
         | HPsquared wrote:
         | I find 7-zip is a lot faster than the Windows Explorer Zip
         | handler.
        
           | ok123456 wrote:
           | That's because it supports multicore by default.
        
         | soared wrote:
         | Default unzipping in windows requires admin privileges for some
         | reason on my work laptop, so I had IT install winrar so I could
         | unzip without admin access.
        
           | jandrese wrote:
           | Your admins have locked down the temporary directory that the
           | zip routine uses to store extracted files before copying them
           | into the final location. That's the sort of paranoia that
           | breaks a lot of applications in hard to diagnose ways.
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | Because some people, for reasons known only to themselves,
         | still insist on using .tar files in 2023.
        
         | ElectricalUnion wrote:
         | > Zip is built into literally everything. I don't really want
         | to have to download another application to unpack something I
         | get.
         | 
         | There's a more interesting question lying in there:
         | 
         | "Zip is built into literally everything."
         | 
         | From my anecdotal evidence with random Windows software, for
         | said support, developers probably bundled 7zip in order to
         | support compressed file formats.
         | 
         | Granted, in the end the fact that 7zip is bundled, or if 7zip
         | and it's several features are exposed to you as a end-user is
         | another story.
        
         | specproc wrote:
         | IIRC there was some issue with non-Latin characters in
         | filenames in zips on older Windows.
         | 
         | The details escape me, but I live somewhere with a non-Latin
         | script and it rars were very popular here ten-fifteen years ago
         | for this reason.
        
           | chankstein38 wrote:
           | That's interesting! I feel like I've run into that as well
           | pulling down a repo or something at some point!
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | You don't occasionally need to open .7z or .tar.gz files?
        
           | ThrowAway1922A wrote:
           | > You don't occasionally need to open .7z
           | 
           | I do an I absolutely loathe when something is compressed as
           | 7z.
        
           | chankstein38 wrote:
           | I do but I wouldn't if other people didn't put them in that
           | format instead of zip. That said, I know tar.gz is native to
           | linux so that one I understand more than 7z but this thread
           | is showing there are definitely legit uses!
        
         | MikusR wrote:
         | Recovery records.
        
         | CJefferson wrote:
         | Rar seems to handle Chinese filenames much better than zip.
        
         | tredre3 wrote:
         | I use WinRAR because 7zip's handling of tar.gz/bz is abysmal.
         | It first opens the .gz so you have a list containing the tar.
         | Then you can double click the tar to browse it, but it will
         | need to extract it fully to the temp folder first.
         | 
         | WinRAR opens a .tar.gz like any other single-format archive
         | (zip, rar, 7z) so it's much much faster, but also more
         | intuitive.
         | 
         | Even though I use WinRAR, I only create ZIPs for compatibility
         | with others. I would also stick to ZIPs if I were to use 7zip.
        
         | xxs wrote:
         | >Zip is built into literally everything.
         | 
         | Deflate is a 16bit algorithm from '91. Which is slow and the
         | density is low.
        
         | jccalhoun wrote:
         | I use Nanazip which is a version of 7zip with modernization
         | (although its development seems to have slowed considerably so
         | I may switch back to regular 7zip) because I do run into
         | compressed file other than zips. When windows 11 support for
         | rar and 7z comes out I may stop using it.
        
         | coolfission wrote:
         | Probably because all those youtubers say to download WinRAR to
         | extract files so people don't know that there's better
         | alternatives.
         | 
         | I also recommend NanaZip (a fork of 7zip) instead of 7zip since
         | it integrates better with Windows 11 context menu.
        
         | nonethewiser wrote:
         | It's been a few years since I daily-drove windows but I
         | remember that I used 7zip sometimes because the native zip
         | didn't work at times. As I recall I ran into issues with it
         | failing on deeply nested files.
        
         | jcpham2 wrote:
         | As a sysadmin, I frequently deploy 7zip via .msi to all
         | machines that I think might even have the slightest use to open
         | archive files. It's not that the OS doesn't support .zip it's
         | that the OS ONLY support .zip out of the box and the OS .zip
         | file manager is inadequate in many troubleshooting scenarios.
         | 
         | Sometimes you need to split archives Sometimes you want to open
         | a non-standard file type with something to unpack it
         | (.xlsx/self extracting .exe) Sometimes you've got Software
         | Restriction Policies that prevent standard %temp% extraction
         | installers from running and need to manually extract a package.
         | 
         | This is the short list
        
         | dataflow wrote:
         | WinRAR has way more useful options available than 7-zip. Like
         | adding a recovery record, storing certain file extensions
         | without compression, etc.
        
         | oefrha wrote:
         | You mean the zip feature built into Windows that will refuse to
         | compress if there's any file with non-Latin1 character in its
         | name, and will garble Unicode filenames compressed on other
         | platforms? No I'm not talking about Windows 2000, it's the same
         | in Windows 11.
         | 
         | For ~half of the world's population it's literally useless.
        
         | dogleash wrote:
         | 7Zip - the tool not the format - is about as unobtrusive to use
         | as it gets, supports every archive format we deal with on a
         | regular basis, has a very tolerable license and provides better
         | feedback than explorer's zip. It also handles our zip files
         | that explorer is known to choke on.
         | 
         | And because we can assume everyone in the office has 7zip, we
         | don't have to create zips for things that go between windows
         | and linux systems.
        
           | mrguyorama wrote:
           | >unobtrusive
           | 
           | We are talking about the program that adds like four options
           | to the right click menu throughout your entire system right?
        
             | Eisenstein wrote:
             | Arguably very useful options. For instance, try using 7zip
             | to extract an .exe installer sometime -- right click on it
             | and extract it into its own dir and see what is in it.
        
             | justsomehnguy wrote:
             | In the submenu. And it's useful not to wrestle with the
             | unregistered filetypes or just RMB on some .exe to be able
             | to unpack it.
        
             | ls612 wrote:
             | I've used 7zip for a decade and just a couple months ago I
             | discovered in addition to everything I knew about already
             | it also offers it also has a SHA-256 checksum tool in it's
             | context menu! It is legitimately one of the most useful
             | utilities on my system.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | I use Windows' built-in zip support more often than not, but
         | 7zip is still handy as a "debug tool" when Windows gives up on
         | a zip, or when I know a file is a zip but has a different
         | extension and for whatever reason I don't want to rename it in
         | that moment (skim something out of a DOCX file, for instance).
         | 
         | Also, a common gesture I use is 7zip's extensions to the right-
         | click drag file operation. I can select an entire collection of
         | zip files right-click drag it to a different folder and
         | "Extract to *\" which decompresses all the files into a set of
         | folders (under the folder you are dragging into) using the
         | names of the zip files as the folder names (minus the
         | extension). This is a useful and surprisingly common operation.
         | (For instance, downloading a bunch of Bandcamp albums on a
         | Bandcamp Friday and decompressing them all at once to a music
         | library folder.)
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | Further tangent: my company still pays the zombie remains of
           | Corel for WinZIP licenses and _that_ astonishes me. WinZIP is
           | slow and really doesn 't seem to offer much over Windows
           | built-in support, plus it still "kindly" clobbers the built-
           | in support (on every reinstall/upgrade) removing it from the
           | default and subtly breaking it (which I find quite
           | irritating). It uselessly bloats Windows File Explorer
           | tooltips and dialogs. (Why do I care what some subset of
           | filenames inside the zip file are?) It doesn't seem to offer
           | any useful tools, and its user interface is ugly, slow, and
           | prone to crashing.
           | 
           | WinZIP should probably have died in the 90s.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Related recent other vulnerability from last week:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37179505
        
       | catboybotnet wrote:
       | If you're downloading random files from a stranger's vague post,
       | then I think you had it coming.
       | 
       | The file extension spoof fix is nice, however.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | bandergirl wrote:
       | On a related note: Since switching to Mac a long time ago, I've
       | come to love both the great support of archives by the OS (and
       | The Unarchiver and more recently Keka) and the way archives are
       | treated: _double-click to extract and delete._
       | 
       | Exploring archives a-la-WinZIP has made little sense to me since
       | (content previews however would still be helpful)
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | dingi wrote:
       | Oh WinRAR. Before my time ended with Windows 10-12 years ago,
       | this was one of the first programs that I install on a new
       | Windows setup. Feature wise, I haven't seen any tool beat WinRAR.
       | Locking, splitting, recovery support, And my favorite, SFX
       | archives (msi file equivalent). Creating an installation program
       | was dead easy. And they were and still are cool enough to give a
       | perpetual free trial in exchange for a few nagging screens.
        
         | Frost1x wrote:
         | >Feature wise, I haven't seen any tool beat WinRAR. Locking,
         | splitting, recovery support, And my favorite, SFX archives (msi
         | file equivalent). Creating an installation program was dead
         | easy.
         | 
         | Doesn't 7zip do all of this (and quite a bit more)?
        
           | rawgabbit wrote:
           | I don't know about today. But WinRAR could handle very large
           | files without issue. It would automatically breakup a huge
           | file into a series of smaller compressed files. 7zip AFAIK
           | struggled with larger files. I don't know if things have
           | improved or not.
        
             | kibibu wrote:
             | That was my first encounter with RAR in the dos days -
             | multiple volume archives, with each 1.44 filled to the
             | brim.
        
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