In fact, for many Windows users who use WinRAR frequently, they hardly know that it's not only a data compression and archiving tool but also a data encryption tool. As you know, a RAR file may contain dozens to hundreds of file in various file formats, like pictures, videos and documents. Since those files can be your private belongings, or because they are of great importance for commercial use, it's not enough to just send them into a compressed RAR file to save disk space. Instead, you should put the compressed RAR file in a safe vault with a strong password, so that unauthorized persons cannot decompress the file, let alone open, view or move the important files in it.
password protect zip files using winrar
There are several ways you can try to set a RAR file private, protecting it with a password, but the optimal choice should be within the compression program itself. Both WinRAR and 7-ZIP allow you to password protect a RAR file, so you just use your own program to do the encryption. Here, we use WinRAR as an example.
When you tried the WinRAR method to encrypt a RAR file, you would feel easy to go through the whole process. And decrypting the file is also easy to handle, only the password is required. Only one fact should be noticed. When you encrypt the RAR file with a password, the WinRAR generates a new compressed and encrypted file without hiding, deleting or removing the original unprotected RAR file. That's not a 100% secure way for protection if someone is trying to hack you computer on purpose.
If you demand a higher security level for a RAR file, try to make it using the other advanced solution. EaseUS LockMyFile is developed for basic to premium users for fully protecting certain files or folder on a local disk, external device, shared network drive and a cloud drive with an array of security features in the following.
Use the "File Encryption" if you take it as a WinRAR alternative program. Otherwise, for a more secured protection for your RAR file, it's a good idea to hide it or lock it up. Let's try to lock a RAR file using the below steps.
As you see, it's simple and effective no matter you use the WinRAR method or the EaseUS folder lock software to password protect a RAR file. So, the best encryption and protection plan should be the one you like the most. Nonetheless, if you have further demands for monitoring a file, shredding a file, securing a flash drive or wiping a disk, download and use EaseUS LockMyFile, which is free.
Windows 10 only offers a way to encrypt a zip file, not password protect it. So, to password protect a zip file on Windows 10, you need a third-party app that runs on Windows. An example of such a third-party app is WinRAR.
As you know, Windows 10 systems have built-in compressed folder tools so that you can zip and unzip files without WinZip or 7-Zip software installed. However, if you want to put a password on a ZIP file in Windows 10, you can't do it without the help of a third-party utility like 7-Zip, WinRAR, etc. Now, this post will show you how to password protect a zip file in Windows 10 by using 7-Zip, WinRAR or iSumsoft FileCarer.
Tips: 7-Zip doesn't support directly adding a password to an existing ZIP file. It allows you to set a password while creating a ZIP archive. Hence, if you want to password protect an existing ZIP file, you need to first unzip it, and then re-zip it with the password.
Step 2: Right-click on the file/folder you want to compress into a password protected zip file, and then from the context menu point to 7-Zip, and select Add to archive.
Step 3: In the Add to Archive dialog, type a name for the archive or keep its default name, and select zip as an archive format. Then locate the Encryption section, type password under the "Enter password" box and "Reenter password" box, and finally click OK. Then a password protected ZIP file will be created. Password will be required in order to open or extract the files in the ZIP file.
Make sure WinRAR is installed on your Windows 10. If you haven't installed it, get the free trial version of WinRAR from , and install it on Windows 10. Then use it to password protect a zip file by two ways as below.
Step 3: Enter your password and reenter it for verification, and then click OK. Click OK again. Then a password-protected ZIP archive will be created in the location where the original file/folder is. Password will be required to open or extract the files in the ZIP archive.
iSumsoft FileCarer is a professional and easy-to-use file encryption tool designed to protect file on Windows against prying eyes. Unlike locking file with password, it use strong algorithm to convert your files into inaccessible form, which is a more secure way to password protect your private file. Here you can password protect zip file using iSumsoft FileCarer with these easy steps.
Step 2: Enter Encrypt option and hit the file icon to select the zip file you want to protect. After selection, input a desired password twice and click on the Encrypt button at the right bottom.
The first SFX archive file further makes use of either a PDF or Excel icon to make it appear legitimate, when, in reality, it contains three components: the password-protected second SFX RAR file, the aforementioned batch script which launches the archive, and a decoy PDF or image.
"The execution of the batch file leads to the installation of the malware lurking within the password-protected RARsfx [self-extracting RAR archive]," researchers Bernard Bautista and Diana Lopera said in a Thursday write-up.
Utilizing different and more efficient algorithms sometimes calls for a change in file extension. For example, the program 7-Zip can use LZMA and LZMA2 compression algorithms, which result in a ".7z" file extension. These algorithms are much better at compressing files than the default ZIP method, which is fast but uses older and less efficient DEFLATE compression. However, the file extensions required for newer compression methods, which are not supported in any operating system by default, mean you may sacrifice accessibility when using them to share files. Likewise, RAR is better at compression than ZIP, but it, too, requires other software prior to use, even for simple data extraction/decompression.
A program is required to secure ZIP and RAR files with a password. RAR files require WinRAR for compression in the first place, and WinRAR has password encryption settings you can use. Meanwhile, ZIP's default support in operating systems does not come with password protection settings in recent years; programs like 7-Zip or WinZip are required.
How secure the password protection on a ZIP or RAR file is depends partly on the program used to protect it. WinRAR uses an AES-128-bit encryption, but 7-Zip uses the more secure AES-256. This means that a password-protected ZIP file created in 7-Zip would take longer to crack than a RAR file created in WinRAR.
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This offers a simple way to protect a zip archive file from unwanted viewing access, as when a user attempts to decompress the contents of the zip archive, the correct password must be entered in order for the archive to extract.
Despite being created at the command line, you do not need to unzip the file from the terminal, it can be expanded from the Mac OS X Finder or within Windows using standard unzipping apps. Just double click on the file, then enter the password, and it will decompress. You can also decompress the zip archive from the command line with:
Keep in mind that password protected zip files are not encrypted with some super strong deep encryption method, so if you want a more secure file encryption, you may want to pass a regular zip file through openSSL encryption with des3 or something similar to really make the file secure.
If you want to create encrypted zip files using the much more secure AES-256 encryption algorithm, you need to use third party software, such as BetterZip. (On Windows you can use WinZip, WinRAR, 7-Zip etc).
ZIP is a generic archive format that is readable by OS X, Windows, Linux, and many other platforms. An archive made in one operating system is able to open in other operating systems, whether it is password protected or not. Be sure the file did not get corrupted in the transfer process, and be sure to use a compatible zip archive opener utility (on Windows you can try something like WinZIP if you have troubles)
A RAR file contains one or more files that have been compressed into a smaller file using WinRAR software. The .rar file extension name stands for Roshal Archive, meaning a high quality compressed file (also known as an archive) that can be encrypted with a password.
Encryption: Both file formats support password protection, but they use different encryption methods. RAR uses AES-128 encryption, which is generally superior to the ZIP 2.0 encryption algorithm. If you use 7-Zip to create your ZIP files, you get AES-256 encryption, which is more secure than both RAR and regular ZIP files. With RAR, you can also lock encrypted archives to prevent accidental modification of your files.
I search over the internet for software Q and downloaded it. Once the setup download was over, I realized it was a compressed file. Trying to open the file setup and extract its files so that I can install the application, it prompted to provide its password. I was surprised but I felt this was awesome at the same measure. Now, I am curious to know how do I add a password to a Zip file. Learning how to zip a file with password is easy. This article teaches you how to do it. 2ff7e9595c
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