•  loki   ( @loki@lemmy.ml ) 
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      210 months ago

      I thought it was used in piracy because rar was proprietary and antivirus scanners wouldn’t scan contents inside them or something?

      it also led to a lot of malware and RAT infections because people

      •  dax   ( @dax@beehaw.org ) 
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        410 months ago

        I was curious for more facts other than my dated impressions of the last 2 decades and i found this thread on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2104ih/eli5_why_pirated_movies_are_usually_distributed/

        According to this thread, the compression isn’t as good as I thought it was. So, TIL! I wanted to make sure to share it since I was spreading some incorrect info - though I probably got it the exact same way I got this, which is “some guy said it on the internet”. I suppose I could run some tests to see, though.

      •  dax   ( @dax@beehaw.org ) 
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        310 months ago

        nah it actually compressed a lot of binary files in spanned archives better than the more common zip/gzip computing mechanisms. ace files do even better and if you combo the two you can shave off even more.

        back in the olden days, it was about compression because “high speed internet” was like 1.5mbps. inertia is still going to play a part, too. i think these days it’s just a cultural thing more than anything, though that’s just my impression