WinRAR, the small survive!
WinRAR is probably one of the most recognisable pieces of software out there. Whether you’re 50+ years old or a software developer in their early 20s, you’ve most likely used it, and can probably even recall its name when you need to download it again to a new computer.
Why am I writing about it, though? Why is it interesting at all?. Well, I personally use WinRAR for handling lots of compressed files on a daily basis, generally because I have to create, monitor, and distribute deployment pipelines, which involve ZIP files and other types of compressed media.
Because of the heavy use I give it (and because I always wanted to be able to say that I owned a WinRAR copy lol), I decided to contact them via e-mail, just to ask whether I could have a personal use licence. Here, Louise Cusworth answered me directly, and we exchanged several e-mails from this point onwards.
After some back and forth with Louise, I ended up purchasing a digital copy of WinRAR plus the physical CD!. Of course, this goes beyond the software itself I mean, it’s not like I needed anything here; I just found it very cool to be able to get such a novelty item after personally speaking with someone via e-mail haha.
Months went by after we concluded our e-mail conversation on October 27th, until, on December 14th, I received a letter in the mail directly from Berlin, Germany!. It looked like this:
There was something odd about it, though. This letter didn’t contain the CD I had ordered, but rather something even more special, in my opinion at least haha. Inside the envelope came a big RARLAB sticker, with the word “WinRAR” written in the centre, and their quote “the small survive” in small letters right underneath it. Here’s a picture of everything put together:
All things considered, I’m still hoping the CD pops in my mail one of these days haha, but the level of detail and care put into writing a letter, signing it, getting a nice-looking sticker to go with it… these kinds of things go a long way with me, and I believe I’ve got exactly what I was looking for without even knowing: a cool novelty item with an interesting story behind it that I can now share with you all!
Thank you, RARLAB, for keeping this software legend alive, and to Louise for turning this into quite the experience for me!.