It's best to look at .rar and .zip as packages, envelopes, encasings to simplify and/or protect the data that you are trying to send.

Often times games and such are multiple discs or bin and cue files and instead of sending 5 different files over the internet, you package them into 1 .rar or .zip file. Another cool thing with .rar files is they allow you to package up a large file and then cut it into smaller pieces to be reassembled later. This allows people to host up a large file on those small hosting sites like Rapidshare that only allow 100mb files or smaller.
Melkane Reviewed by Melkane on . new to torrents, need some help... what is a .rar file, and what do i have to do to play it? thanx! Rating: 5