Kinda “meh” on this one. Sure, attackers will use other formats to spread malware. But, it’s not like thy haven’t been successful enough with zip files. If anything, it might mean that Windows Defender actually has a better chance to analyze the contents, before they execute. Though, whether or not Defender will actually block the execution is open for debate.
As always : convenience vs security Who needs .rar archive native support in the file explorer in 2025?
Does Eugene Roshal really deserves to loose his 12 fellow subscribers ?
Another perspective: do you trust the average consumer to ever update WinRAR or 7zip? If it’s baked into Windows, at least Microsoft can patch any exploits that are discovered.
I turst application’s auto-update more than users complying with windows updates. They tend to disable windows updates because “they are anoying, long and supposed to add more bloat and bugs and I never reboot my PC”.
Do users actually have a choice to ignore updates again? When I last touched Windows, it would forcibly install minor updates without giving much control to disable it other than setting a time range where it wasn’t allowed to force a reboot.
God I hate compressed file support in explorer.
I even disable zip support. Let me use my own app for that.
