downloading .rar files

[cjvinthechair]

  Ah, gentlemen - and ladies: quite incredible, this site. Much of it sadly way too erudite for the likes of me.

I am greatly enjoying the download facility (I can hear what I love, even if I can't begin to understand the textual appreciation of why I might love it!) - during which process I note with appreciation that one of my great mentors from You Tube, Fyrexianoff, has surfaced among you !
Hi, Tony, delighted to see a familiar by-line !
Can anyone help me on .rar downloads ? I' m hideously incompetent at all this IT stuff; and loath, I'm afraid, to start paying out for things that I'm sure those brighter than I am are getting for free.
Mediafire has served very well for a number of gorgeous pieces - .rar defeats me entirely. Any help available ? Much appreciated if it is !

                              Clive.

[ArturPS]

www.rarlab.com

It's like zip, download winrar there and enjoy.

[TerraEpon]

7zip, which is free can also uncompress them (though has problems editing them).
http://www.7-zip.org/

There's probably a number of others too....

[Ilja]

www.rarlab.com

It's like zip, download winrar there and enjoy.

Or, if you have a Mac, the free Unarchiver

[cjvinthechair]

Many thanks for replies - 'winrar' I fear you have to pay for, & no idea how to go about that (or much inclination since there's so much out there where payment can be 'bypassed'.
The '7' system is just plain confusing - which of the many versions is compatible with a very standard laptop ?
Fear I don't really understand why when so many contributors are kindly putting their uploads on a simple 'mediafire' system that even I can use, others are choosing a complex system which may involve the recipient in expense. Is there something special about this 'rar' system that makes it so preferable ?
Do so appreciate the many downloads I've managed to extract really easily from 'mediafire' - thank you to all uploaders !

                  Clive.

[Mark Thomas]

Clive, people use the RAR format to reduce the size of files to make them quicker to download, because it compresses them whilst preserving the original file. It's also an easy way of packaging several files (maybe mp3s of individual movements) into one file for easier and quicker downloading.

I don't want to sound plonking, but probably can't avoid doing so: there are many tutorials available just be Googling "RAR tutorial". Why not just look at a few and see how easy it is to extract files from an RAR archive. It's not rocket science, but to learn how to do anything you do need to believe that you can do it, not just throw up your hands and say "I can't cope". As others have said, there are  free alternatives, but even WinRAR is free for the first 40 days - just download the 32-bit version for Windows and that'll work fine on a Windows laptop.

As for asking people to upload as straight mp3s, and I am definitely going to sound plonking here, if someone has gone to the trouble of uploading something I'm certainly not going to criticise the format in which they upload it.

[ArturPS]

Clive, people use the RAR format to reduce the size of files to make them quicker to download, because it compresses them whilst preserving the original file. It's also an easy way of packaging several files (maybe mp3s of individual movements) into one file for easier and quicker downloading.

I don't want to sound plonking, but probably can't avoid doing so: there are many tutorials available just be Googling "RAR tutorial". Why not just look at a few and see how easy it is to extract files from an RAR archive. It's not rocket science, but to learn how to do anything you do need to believe that you can do it, not just throw up your hands and say "I can't cope". As others have said, there are  free alternatives, but even WinRAR is free for the first 40 days - just download the 32-bit version for Windows and that'll work fine on a Windows laptop.

As for asking people to upload as straight mp3s, and I am definitely going to sound plonking here, if someone has gone to the trouble of uploading something I'm certainly not going to criticise the format in which they upload it.

I agree.
Also, after those 40 days it doesn't stop working. It asks you to pay but you don't have to. This installation of windows I'm using is from '06, I always install winrar day one, so it's been 5 years on this computer, still rocking.

[Ilja]

It needs to be said that most auto file formats are already compressed ones: so by RARing .MP3, .WMA or .AAC files you will gain very little. It IS a good way of avoiding creating (and saddling the downloader with) a plethora of separate files (for instance with operas or theme-and-variations things).