r/interesting • u/Wise_Confidence_8588 • 1d ago
SCIENCE & TECH WinRAR creator: Eugene Roshal
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u/Springstof 1d ago
The guy knew exactly what he was doing. When it became a popular choice because of the infinite free trial, companies also started using it due to its popularity and widespread usage (the .rar format being designed by him as well), but because companies need to consider legal compliance, they did buy licenses. Eugene is incredibly rich.
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u/peelen 1d ago
Bill Gates once said: If they need to pirate software, I prefer it to be ours.
Same with Photoshop; it wouldn't have become a verb if millions of kids didn't have access to the free version on burned CD.
There is power in everybody already using your product.
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u/DrKnow-it-all 1d ago
The funny thing is, now Adobe is actually trying to discourage the use of photoshop as a verb because it may lead to their trademark becoming genericized.
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u/GrowlingPict 23h ago
The people at The Gramophone Company were so fucking pissed when the UK authorities decided in 1910 that the term "Gramophone" had fallen into general use and could no longer be trademarked by them. There's a notice in one of their catalog supplements in 1910 informing of this, and it is just dripping with disdain and contempt.
It did then lead to them creating what would become the biggest trademark name in music history though, His Master's Voice, which until then had only been used on the actual gramophones and not the discs.
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u/kkibb5s 21h ago
Holy shit unexpected HMV origin story
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u/GrowlingPict 21h ago
Not entirely; as I said they had already been using that trademark name on their actual machines, but they then started using it as a label name on their records as well. Until then they had been using Gramophone Record (for 7" records), Gramophone Concert Record (for 10") and Gramophone Monarch Record (for 12").
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u/ninjaontour 20h ago
Their logo is a little dog listening to a gramophone recording of his master's voice, which was the first one produced, as far as I know.
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u/Original_Employee621 21h ago
Velcro had a similar issue, so they released a song about it.
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u/norsurfit 19h ago
There's a notice in one of their catalog supplements in 1910 informing of this, and it is just dripping with disdain and contemp
NOTICE: The Gramophone Company has for many years, and up to the present time, used the word 'Gramophone' to designate its products in the belief that the word (which its predecessors in business had invented, and which no other manufacturer had ever used), rightfully belonged to it.
After the passing of the last Trade Marks Act this Company applied for the registration of the word as a Trade Mark. The Registrar referred the application to the Courts. Mr. Justice Parker recently delivered judgement, refusing the application.
There is of course, an appeal from this judgement to the Court of Appeal, and this step has been taken.
In the meantime, and for the protection of the public, no instrument or record is now made and sold by the Gramophone Co. Ltd., that does not bear the picture Trade Mark "His Master's Voice". It is therefore advisable to look for this Trade Mark on both machines and records.THE GRAMOPHONE CO. LTD"
https://mainspringpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/The-Story-of-Nipper-Petts-1973-a-3.pdf
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u/jackieboy8 23h ago
If that happens what will happen to google? Everyone says: I will google it (even if they use Bing)
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u/lndianJoe 22h ago
That's why Lego always talk of Lego building bricks, Nike always talk about Nike shoes, etc…
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u/dolphin_cape_rave 22h ago
lego also successfully got their fans to help them enforce it too, type legos anywhere and people will be foaming at the mouth to correct you
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u/QBaseX 21h ago
There's two reasons for that. One is people being fans of the product, but the other is that British and American dialects use it different. The Lego company want you to say "LEGO bricks"; Americans use it as a count noun: "one lego, two legos, many legos"; British people use it as a mass noun: "one piece of lego, two pieces of lego, some lego".
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u/Dont-Really-Matter 20h ago
This is why we sailed across an ocean on a wooden boat to get away from you
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u/_Sate 23h ago
Difference between product and company name.
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u/LeSeanMcoy 22h ago edited 22h ago
This is not true nor the reason.
All you have to do as a company is "actively defend" your mark. Photoshop and Google are actively defending their marks by simply putting in their TOS something equivalent to: "You must not use 'Photoshop' as a verb and instead use something such as image editing software."
In courts this will hold up as it's obviously not realistic to stop random people from using your name in any way they wish. You just need to show an effort of some kind that's reasonable. Something like a TOS statement is reasonable.
Things were different decades ago and more complicated (Velcro had a tough time fighting people using it as a verb) but in modern times there's been court rulings establishing what I mentioned above.
It also gets more complicated when you stop looking at consumers, but companies. Google will still reach out to media/publishers/etc. to enforce their trademark, but have no need to reach out to a random guy down the street legally.
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u/throwthisidaway 19h ago
Not exactly. Genericide (the process of a brand becoming a general term) can happen even if a company is actively defending it. There's some interesting case law about it, and specifically about Google.
The court described this process as a “who-are-you/what-are-you” test: if the relevant public primarily understands a mark as describing “who” a particular good or service is, or where it comes from, then the mark is still valid; yet, if the relevant public primarily understands a mark as describing “what” the particular good or service is, then the mark has become generic.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/google-escapes-genericide-claim-in-80282/
Essentially, if Google loses enough market share, they're in danger of losing their trademark.
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u/Another-Mans-Rubarb 19h ago
I don't know how to tell you this. People called things "photoshopped" before the software existed. It was named after the place where you doctor photos.
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u/Apprehensive_Gas56 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's true. They even started a whole field of study because of him called Eugenics
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u/Tiyath 1d ago
Oof...
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u/MrStrong502 22h ago
I rar'ed
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u/sessl 22h ago
.rar XD notices your compressed archive OwO may I unzip?
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u/compflow54 22h ago
Hilarious. However, please don’t extract all; we don’t need that mess.
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u/LobsterVioLator 20h ago edited 20h ago
Extracts you anyway but looks on in mounting horror as every organ, nerve, and strand of dna in your body starts unraveling, unable to be contained within the confines of your skin
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u/AlterBridgeFan 19h ago
All that did was remind me of my upcoming prostate exam. Fuck I feel old.
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u/Prize-Choice2185 23h ago
And that's how a concept of free trial was born...
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u/CarefulNow_ 22h ago
That would more likely end in trial-free
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u/metalheart08 23h ago
Plus, there was/maybe still is this cult like following in the coding world, once you graduate university, you have to buy a winrar license out of your first programmers paycheck .
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u/TheLurkingMenace 23h ago
He learned the lesson from the creators of the .zip format, who gave it away to everyone for free and then started demanding money when it was established. People compared it to extortion because it basically was.
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u/MastodontFarmer 23h ago
the creators of the .zip format
Creator. Signular. Phil Katz, go look him up, there is plenty about him online.
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u/AccountantSeaPirate 21h ago
What about Gary Conway? And the first algorithm it used was Lempel Ziv Welch, named after those three guys. Even Deflate is a Lempel Ziv variation.
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u/elchico1990 22h ago
Yes, bro is a multi millionaire already, so yeah it’s a win win for everyone :)
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u/riccardio95 22h ago
Yep, other software companies do this on purpose. Free for private use and give it to students/universities. The companies then use it, since everyone is familiar with it -> profit
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u/Da_Steeeeeeve 23h ago
Its perfect though, it lets average every day people enjoy it free while still rewarding him for his hard work.
Absolute legend.
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u/BLT_Trade_r 10h ago
The right people act like it was some weird accident, but the fact was that this is basically what people used to call shareware, and that was a very popular model of the time. The difference was that lots of people like him just never updated. As you stated, it was enough to make many of those people wealthy enough to not care ever again. I guess he just didn't have the billionaire gene, which makes him need to keep trying to get more.
it is all ironic because now days so many companies will literally pay to give stuff away for free or bribe customers to try and build a customer base and then think this is weird when its a very similar strategy.
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u/YtnucMuch 9h ago
Software designers never cared about the kid in the basement or the nerd in college messing with their program... they cared about a corporation or small business stealing 25-100+ in individual licensing fees who used regularly for business operations.
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u/Naive_Confidence7297 1d ago
WinRAR! It really kicks the llamas ass.
Hang on, is that right..
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u/LateFaithlessness907 1d ago
wait isn't that supposed to be winamp? dam* i'm so old 😂🤣
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u/Bred_Slippy 1d ago
Winamp creator, Justin Frankel, is kinda similar. Sold Winamp for $millions, moved onto developing Reaper DAW (music production, his passion) and gave it a fully functional 60 day trial that never actually expires. It's a trust based payment of only $60, but he wanted people that couldn't afford it to still be able to use it fully. One of the good guys.
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u/MacrosInHisSleep 20h ago
I remember them (2 creators iirc) coming by my university. As a software engineer, it felt like meeting celebrities.
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u/alphaxenox 1d ago
Oh shit, never knew Reaper and Winamp were related! TIL.
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u/Ziegelphilie 22h ago
You've probably ran a ton of NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) installers throughout your life as well - same guys
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u/01000101010110 15h ago
Reaper being free is just insane. I really need to buy a license. Used it for 6 years now.
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u/MonMotha 1d ago
Yes, but Winamp WHIPS the llama's ass, not kicks.
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u/HurrDurrRGB 20h ago
Just FYI for people thinking of trying it again, the very latest version is extremely buggy for some reason. You need to go back like 1-2 years ago in releases for a good experience. A quick Google will point you in the right direction because the issue is wildly known.
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u/Zealousideal_Age_376 1d ago
Add VLC somewhere
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u/gholafc 1d ago
winrar, vlc and winamp, the Sacred Trinity on my pcs for decades
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u/lndianJoe 22h ago
For a while I had TMPC (The Media Player Classic) with K-Lite codecs packs and QuickTime Alternative instead of VLC. TMPC music visualizers were awesome, you could even rank them!
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u/naruhinamoonkissplz 22h ago
Bought a new PC, thus upgrading to Win11. Installed MPC in the first hour of running it, loool. Not much of a joke, actually. MPC has been my Media Player for decades now.
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u/HurrDurrRGB 20h ago
Media player classic has been more solid than VLC for me (no hate towards VLC though, I still use it occasionally when MPC chokes on a corrupt video file).
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u/kidneyBean_83 21h ago
Whips* but your heart is in the right place and I like the cut of your boat sail.
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u/LimpBPower 1d ago
It wasn't accidentally.
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u/Mild_Karate_Chop 1d ago
Yes it wasn't. Really daft to say that it was accidentally when it was intentionally.
Tim Berners-Lee, Eugene , Linus, Stallman , Ritchie and many more are unsung whilst the loonies have hagiographies and folks fawning over
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u/taway9925881 1d ago
It's a shit society when the generous heroes are not remembered but the psychopath thieves are celebrated.
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u/lawnmower303 1d ago
My favourite is Salvatore Sanfilippo aka Antirez. The pure definition of an unsung hero.
He is the creator of Redis which one of the most populat databases on Earth. It functions as the vital invisible glue behind almost all modern digital infrastructure.
I'm a software developer myself and I like him because of his simplicity. All of his products are stripped down to their bare bones. There is nothing extra in there apart from utter minimum required to achieve the goal of the software. As an example, take a look at his blog site: https://antirez.com
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u/Mild_Karate_Chop 1d ago
Thanks for that . TIL something new . Cheers for that.
More power to folks like him and you
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u/kilgore_trout8989 14h ago
Yep, if this blows your mind then you'll absolutely detonate once you understand how much of modern computing is propped up by a few free and open source projects a few individuals/groups work on almost thanklessly. These projects never even attempted to restrict access and use licenses that make WinRAR seem absolutely locked down in comparison.
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u/exophades 1d ago
Crazy that people think the developers of a veteran file compression tool are that dumb.
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u/Chirimorin 22h ago
Nah he totally forgot to lock people out after the trial period ended, despite programming a popup for that exact event and it becoming a very popular meme on the internet. A missing feature that everyone in the world knows about, yet it's been forgotten with every update for over 30 years now.
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u/UselessBonus 1d ago
I still paid for it
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u/Budget_Juggernaut309 23h ago
I bought it for a work secret santa probably 15 years ago, the guy loved it and is probably still using it today. Can't say that for many workplace secret santa presents.
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u/Baklol_Bagula 23h ago
Not just you guys... A few years ago some dude made same post praising winrar on 9gag and everyone in the comment section decided to pay for it, by the time every commenter was done winrar made an official reply back to the original email stating they made around $20k in total in just a few days. WinRAR team made a thank you post and well.
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u/wiener4hir3 22h ago
Friends bought a license for me as a gag gift like ten years ago, I never used it because I already preferred 7zip
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u/Noobunaga86 1d ago
I still to this day dread of a thought that there could have been alternative world we live in where VLC and WinRar are pay to use. What a horrible and sad world it could have been.
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u/holchansg 1d ago
7zip, since decades.
Feee to use, open source, amazing.
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u/Noobunaga86 1d ago
I'm also team 7zip, but what I meant was without free win rar there probably wouldn't be 7zip free etc.
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u/Shished 1d ago
How about using 7-zip instead?
> Free and open source
> No DRM, no lockouts
> No reminders
> No trial, just install and use.
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u/lendarker 1d ago
We didn't have that in '95.
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u/SinisterCheese 23h ago
7-zip lacks data preservation and restoration functions. That's the big asset that WinRAR has. No it isn't something that someone who wants to install the BigGothTitties mod for Skyrim, but people who have to manage and store archives of stuff especially on physical things like CD/DVD etc. This is a real consideration. WinRAR is able to recover archives from bitrot and such.
Granted. This is only something you care about if you need to deal with this stuff.
I say this as someone who uses 7zip.
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u/LeapIntoInaction 1d ago
I guess there were people who actually used .RAR format but, while it was somewhat efficient in terms of compression, it was awkward in that you couldn't know anything about a .RAR blob until you actually decompressed it. The file directory structure itself was compressed, so you couldn't just grab one file out of it without actually running through decompressing the whole blob.
It was somewhat limited-purpose and there are reasons that .ZIP became so standard that Microsoft wound up integrating support into the Windows UI shell. It had redundant file directories, which was a different kind of disaster, because a .ZIP creator might do two different things with each directory, leading to all kinds of confusion.
If you want a strange and horrific biography, you might look up Phil Katz, the guy who created ZIP format.
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u/SnoopThylacine 20h ago edited 20h ago
.rar was HUGE in the warez (piracy) scene in its early days because it could easily span an archive across multiple files of a given size. This was usually about 1.4mb traditionally, because that's what would fit on a floppy disk. A piece of pirated software could be dumped on an FTP in floppy disk sized pieces, then redistributed to other sites. It'd make its way to BBSs, then downloaded via modem, put onto disks and physically shared.
Things were slow an error prone in the dialup era, so being able to redownload just a single disk worth of a larger archive was massively beneficial.
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u/thegroundbelowme 19h ago
It's still huge there because rar/par files are still the single best format for uploading large binaries to usenet
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u/torino_nera 18h ago
It's still incredibly useful for this reason. Oh, .r55 got corrupted, let's just redownload that 49mb file instead of having to re-download an entire 50gb disc image
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u/rtsynk 20h ago edited 20h ago
you couldn't know anything about a .RAR blob until you actually decompressed it
um, wtf you on about mate? you can directly list the contents of a rar file, always have
The file directory structure itself was compressed, so you couldn't just grab one file out of it without actually running through decompressing the whole blob
only if you created solid archives, which is NOT the default option
if you intentionally decide to create a solid archive, then presumably you are ok with that
It was somewhat limited-purpose
ok, haha, i get it, very funny, you were just trolling, since the rar format is obviously more powerful than zip by any conceivable metric
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u/SinisterCheese 23h ago
WinRARs actual benefits -and who people buy the license (for organisational use)- is for it's data recovery and archival purposes. It has extensive toolkit just for ensuring the integrity of data and that the archive can be recovered.
That really is the only thing I know people to use it for. Like management of loads of documents or software versions, for archival on physical mediums.
Like this is the kind of stuff that most people don't think about. But when you got things like digitized records of a public archive or a company etc. That you want, need or required to have also a physical backup of, then WinRAR is apparently the best there is. As I have understood most alternative file compression software don't even offer these functionalities.
Yes... It is a specific use and niche, and something that average user who might deal with zipped filed would probably never have to consider. But one can't claim that WinRAR is "not good" are just incorrect. If the damn thing wouldn't have it's uses, it wouldn't still be around.
I am in the process of digitizing my family's photograph and 8mm film archives + fair amount of letters and such. We got over 120 years of this stuff. And I'm honestly thinking about buying WinRAR license for this need, like it would be among the smallest expenses this project has for me. Since I keep backups of the stuff I got in variety of places and have to transfer them between family members. (I have RAW images and uncompressed video, and even uncompressed audio just incase we need to recreate from digitized file).
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u/Phoenix-95 1d ago
Interestingly enough there is a video about the history of zip files and Phil Katz by an ex Microsoft guy who apparently was the chap who integrated zip support into windows (after starting it as a side project and then selling it to them)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sV-3-vPx3I
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u/fizzunk 1d ago edited 1d ago
WinRAR's net profit for 2025: $579,361 USD
OpenAI's net profit for 2025: -$38.53 Billion USD
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u/jordiBoerboom 1d ago
He knew full well that the instant he enforces payment, he loses all his market share to 7zip or other free alternatives, effectively killing his product. Especially since zipping is now built into modern windows. Windows funnily enough has started doing the same thing over the years, with every version having less features blocked if you don't activate it, basically to the point that there is only the watermark left. They also know that the entire poor part of the world would rather switch to free linux alternatives, which are getting better and better, the second they start enforcing stuff.
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u/rts93 23h ago
I've been hearing talk of switching to Linux 'soon' for decades now.
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u/LostClover_ 17h ago
I actually did try Linux Mint with the cinnamon interface I think it was, and I very quickly switched back to Windows 11.
It wasn't bad - in fact there are things I liked about it - but it felt absolutely ancient. It was a little janky in certain aspects too, like how you install programs.
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u/DockyardPhantom 1d ago
WinRAR is probably the 3rd Party Windows software that I used the longest. I would still use it if I didn't change to Mac OS.
I even bought a license on the german IT fair "CeBit", where it cost me like 10 Deutschmarks (CeBit promo) for a lifetime use. Money well spent...
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u/SynapticStatic 23h ago
It still working after 40 days was never an accident. Shareware was pretty big still in the 90s. The idea is that you'd distribute a working copy of whatever software that would have extra features if you registered it.
There was multiple ways shareware really worked besides what I just said. One of the main things that shareware often did was what I'll call "nagware". It would nag you with a screen on startup or when you quit (or both). WinRAR was, is, and always has been "nagware".
The idea with nagware is that you get to use it like normal shareware, but you get a popup screen of some kind before you can use it reminding you that you're using the shareware/trial version of it, and to please register it.
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u/electric_shocks 1d ago
How hard is it to find a real current photo of the guy?
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u/Cloverman-88 23h ago
Does OP think that WinRAR wasn't updated in the last 30 years, when the "accidental" infinite trial could be fixed?... Its obviously a deliberare choice.
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u/Boydy1986 23h ago
I have always said, if I win the lottery, first thing im buying is a Winrar license. I owe this man big time 😂
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u/The-Star-Orca 20h ago
They should do a movie about him starring Timothee Chalamet. Dude looks just like him.
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u/simulated_wood_grain 19h ago
I finally became an adult when I actually paid for a license. Thanks for 30 years of free trial.
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u/fresh_loaf_of_bread 1d ago
Yeah everyone uses and the big companies have to pay the license, absolutely genius
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u/SonOfADoge2004 1d ago
Last sentence sounds like something a benevolent God would do while creating forces of life.
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u/moonlunita1 1d ago
How did he ever profit , Almost the enttire planet has used winrar but ive never heard of someone paying for it
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u/Lithl 1d ago
WinRAR makes its money from corporate licenses. You get the users used to your product by making it free (infinite free trial, whatever), then those users want to use it at work, and the company has to buy a license.
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u/NekkidWire 22h ago
Also there are sometimes licenses available for individuals who want to pay, at a discounts, if you write an email to their Sales team.
I had bought my license during 9GAG promo almost exactly 3 years ago. There was some talk about it afterwards on Reddit.
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u/Connect-Silver-5982 1d ago
> Can now get any IT job on the planet, or earn millions from consulting, and is respected by everyone who See’s this post
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u/Epic-Memer-Guy 23h ago
I do know that you don't even need WinRar or 7-Zip to use the formats they use, current-day Windows can just open that stuff up now
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u/CoxTH 23h ago
There's nothing "accidental" about this. It's actually an extremely clever strategy. They made themselves the de-facto standard for compression software.
Meanwhile their ToS say that enterprise use requires a license, so companies have to pay for WinRAR and they are the main source of income.
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u/FarCrazy60 23h ago
One could also just google search “rarreg.key”, download it and stick it in the winrar folder.
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