The WinRAR approach

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

WinRAR’s Business Model and Revenue

  • Most revenue reportedly comes from corporate licenses; consumers largely use it unpaid.
  • Public filings for the German company behind WinRAR suggest on the order of ~€1M earnings in 2023.
  • Several commenters note their companies bought WinRAR licenses and still rely on it for “mission‑critical” workflows.
  • Others argue the real “WinRAR approach” is less about goodwill and more about making license‑compliance‑driven organizations pay while everyone else uses it freely.
  • The brand now leans into meme status with community management and merchandise.

Licensing, Compliance, and Everyday Violations

  • Many companies are said to violate the 30‑day trial terms, just leaving WinRAR (and other paid tools) in perpetual use.
  • Some workplaces strictly prohibit unapproved third‑party software and would treat such violations seriously; others are lax or ignorant.
  • This triggers broader discussion about people not caring about licensing unless they personally bear risk or cost.

Why Use WinRAR/RAR vs 7-Zip or Others?

  • Some are puzzled why anyone pays for WinRAR when 7‑Zip is free, open source, and uses LZMA with strong compression.
  • Defenders cite:
    • Better Windows integration and ergonomics.
    • Rich archive features: recovery records/parity, good CLI, handling of archive flags, NTFS streams, ACLs, hard links, and built‑in Blake2 hashes.
    • Stable, non-“enshittified” UI and long history.
  • Benchmarks shared: 7‑Zip can compress ~6% smaller but much slower at extreme settings; for most people, convenience beats a small compression gain.
  • Some say they rarely see .rar now; others point out large legacy archives and “scene” rules that historically standardized on RAR (multi‑part archives, floppies, unreliable connections).

Piracy, Culture, and Shareware Patterns

  • Multiple comments describe 80s–90s Eastern and Western Europe (and elsewhere) as heavily pirated ecosystems, including businesses and governments.
  • Piracy is framed as both economic necessity and a growth hack (e.g., Microsoft tolerating it early to build dominance).
  • WinRAR’s permissive trial is compared to classic shareware: get ubiquitous at home, monetize businesses later.
  • Some now consciously pay for tools (licenses, donations, books) as a reaction against that culture and against today’s subscription/DRM backlash.

Nagware vs Goodwill and Related Models

  • Disagreement over whether WinRAR “runs on goodwill”:
    • One side: it’s essentially nagware; you pay to stop the startup dialog.
    • Other side: the nag is mild (hit Escape) and functionally it’s unlimited, which feels generous.
  • Similar “soft paywall” or generous-trial models are cited:
    • Paint Shop Pro, Sublime Text, Reaper, Renoise, Forklift, ShareX, KeePassXC, and others.
    • Immich’s model (fully usable, optional license) is praised as especially user‑friendly and aligned with open source.
  • Many commenters say these approaches make them more willing to pay, especially once they’re no longer broke.

Alternatives and Cross‑Platform Notes

  • On macOS, users missing WinRAR/Total Commander mention:
    • BetterZip for archive browsing and Quick Look integration.
    • Commander One, Marta, Transmit, and Double Commander as dual‑pane/file‑manager replacements.
    • Some still run WinRAR/Total Commander under Wine on Linux/macOS.