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winrar.exe

winrar.exe – Here is the scoop on WinRAR as it pertains to computer network security. The big question: what is winrar.exe and is it spyware, a trojan and if so, how do I get rid of WinRAR?

winrar.exe (WinRAR) – Details

winrar.exe is considered to be a security risk, not only because antivirus programs flag CoolWWWSearch / WinRAR as a virus, but also because a number of users have complained about its performance.

CoolWWWSearch / WinRAR is likely a virus and as such, presents a serious vulnerability which should be fixed immediately! Delaying the removal of winrar.exe may cause serious harm to your system and will likely cause a number of problems, such as slow performance, loss of data or leaking private information to websites.

The Process Server database currently registers winrar.exe to CoolWWWSearch / rarlab.com.

This is part of CoolWWWSearch / WinRAR.

winrar.exe is related to iedll.exe, loader.exe, tapicfg.exe, waol.exe.

Winrar.exe – Confusion

Winrar.exe is a legitimate archive program which can be obtained at RarLab.com. The confusion over Winrar comes from claims that coolwwwsearch uses the same executable name (.exe) as that of winrar.

Many spyware/malware programs use filenames of usual, non-malware programs such as Winrar.

The legitimate winrar is an archive program, that can be obtained from rarlab.com. If you have a process called winrar.exe running on your computer and you don’t use the ‘winrar’ archiving utility, your computer has most likely been infected with a variant of the coolwwwsearch parasite.

If you find winrar.exe running on you computer and don’t use Winrar Archive, then this may present a serious vulnerability. Any vulnerability should be removed immediately.
For a list of free virus removal programs, visit our Personal Antivirus list.

Special thanks to Eugene for the update and suggestions on Winrar, it’s greatly appreciated!

WINRAR.EXE – Disclaimer

Every attempt has been made to provide you with the correct information for winrar.exe or WINRAR. Many spyware / malware programs use filenames of usual, non-malware programs. If we have included information about winrar.exe that is inaccurate, we would greatly appreciate your help by leaving a comment with the correct information below and we’ll do our best to correct it.

You should verify the accuracy of information we provided about winrar.exe.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kay Didion says:

    I’m running 2 machines with WinXP SP3 and WinRAR 3.7.1, which I use very frequently. One day one machine had a runaway process on boot-up, and launched around 400 instances of WinRAR all of which generated “Corrupt archive” messages. My virus scanner, which is up-to-date, was silent on the issue.

    I tried restoring the system to an earlier profile twice with no luck. I uninstalled WinRAR (using Control Panel > Uninstall), and deleted the instances of WinRAR in Windows\Prefetch. I also edited the registry, removing all instances of WinRAR.

    On reboot, the problem was gone.

    I did in-depth virus scans on both machines on completion of this clean-up.

    Three days later my second system had the same problem on boot-up. This time I just uninstalled WinRAR and deleted Windows\Prefetch\WinRAR.exe, and rebooted. The problem went away without the additional work in RegEdit and System Restore.

    I re-installed WinRAR from my original media and everything is back to normal.

    I have no idea what triggered the events.

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