The RAR, DAT and BIN file extensions are very popular in the computer world. At the same time, only a small number of users know what they are for.
RAR file extension stands for Roshal Archiver. In the same way, PK in PKZip stands for Phil Katz. Storing information the way we see it (words, paragraphs, pages) is very space inefficient. That is why computer scientists invented many multiple ways to compress information. Actually, it is quite easy to understand who works the basic principle of compression. For example, if you have a document that consists mainly of the words “dog” and “cat”, you can replace “dog” with “*” and “cat” with “+”. So “dog chases cat” would look like “* chases +”. As you can see, with such a simple operation, we reduced the length of the sentence by 4 characters. In reality, RAR uses a much more advanced compression algorithm and is often capable of reducing the amount of information stored by 5-10 times. That is why it is so popular on the Internet (it is much faster to download 1 MB of information instead of 10 MB).
The DAT file extension stands for DATA. This file extension is used by a large number of applications to store various useful textual and binary information. Files with a DAT extension are usually quite large.
The file extension BIN stands for BINARY. The binary is a way of representing information in a way that the computer could more easily understand. You have probably heard that the computer does not count in the same way that we do it from 1 to 10, but rather it does it in a different way using binary systems where there are only 2 digits: 0 and 1. So the number 2 will be codes like 10, 7 like 111 Therefore, BIN files are generally used to store binary encoded information that the application could use during its work.
I would also like to cover an additional file extension as it became very popular in the internet age. It is the XPI file extension. Mozilla Firefox uses this extension to install Firefox extensions over the Internet. This extension is pronounced “zippy” and the package contains instructions for Firefox on how to install the extension.
If you have problems with any of the above formats, try to find an application that corresponds to your format.
One more possibility is that you have a Windows registry error. To check for registry errors, you can download the registry cleaner.