I opened the Rarlab site after a long time and really went WTF!!!, because beta of new 3.90 version is available, and it also comes in 64bit!! Do we say hooray!! ?

From the changelog or whatever:

1. WinRAR version for Windows x64 is available. If you use
Windows x64, it is strongly recommended to install 64 bit
WinRAR version. It provides a higher performance and better
shell integration than 32 bit version.

2. RAR compression speed is improved for multi-core
and multi-CPU systems. This improvement is most noticeable
in Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.

Can't wait for final!

http://www.rarsoft.com/rarnew.htm

Hooray!!

I like and use winRAR now for years, this is something nice. Let us see if it realy faster .

Hooray indeed! One of my fav apps finally getting a real x64 version, and noticeable speed boosts! I'll definitely try this one tonight.

Edit: it's fast!

Cool! Now I don't have to test it before keeping it .

I gotta rain on the parade, 7zip has had 64-bit support for some time now and it's free; although the shell extension is problematic.

Well, there's a whole lot more to an app than just being 64 bit, or being freeware. 7zip's shell extension hasn't really been an issue for me so far. But the GUI and overall polish (2 places where 7zip is sorely lacking -- it looks like it's straight out of 1995) and such things also matter, or features like creating rar archives for that matter... If 7zip finally made their GUI not look this bloody awful, perhaps more people would use it. It's not like it would be hard either. And yes, I'm aware there are "patchers" for this too.

I don't even know what 7zip is and I don't care RAR is the best!
But seriously, more people use RAR so...
Unfortunately there are still loads of individuals who have no idea what to do with rar files, which I don't get, because they are capable of using zip up to some point (at least unzip a file).

That's just done on purpose to keep the geeks happy .

Indeed, winRAR integrates smoothly into the windows GUI and that's what I like, just a right click, select and done...

Free doesn't always mean better, and while 7zip tends to provide better zip archival than WinRAR, WinRAR's RAR format archives are almost always compressed far better than 7zip's 7z archive format on the same files (not scientific, but I'm talking about very large file archives in my own possession over the years, and WinRAR definitely does a better job at creating RAR archives that are smaller). Also, I've found WinRAR to make RAR archives faster than 7zip creates 7z archives of the same files on my hardware (again, it's not scientific, but it's definitely noticeable). Add to that pretty much everyone I work with on a daily basis is comfortable with RAR as the standard archive format nowadays, and 7zip cannot create a RAR archive, that's a problem. I think if you only need decompression capabilities and time isn't really of the essence, 7zip would be a fine choice as it is free - however, for those of us who RAR up multi-gigabyte files on a regular basis and need to send them over the internet, WinRAR is a must.

With that in mind, I don't see a need to move to 7zip or it's (as you already mentioned) problematic shell extension - especially considering the shell extensions are what I mainly use rather than the full UI.

Im sorry but I disagree. 7z compression for me is better than RAR format in terms on saving space. As to which software is faster, is another issue though.