[useFAR]

>>In fact your experience strikes me as another reason to actively avoid RAR;

This is only your reason.

>>there is no guarantee that your RAR archive can be decompressed with third-party softwares other than WinRAR itself.

I'm perfectly fine, that my personal files would not be opened by someone, who is actively avoiding RAR(in my personal use - after rar was lha, that I used for archiving, because no one else knew what was that). And if I am sending my files to someone, then they will sure know how to use RAR.

What others will do with THEIR PERSONAL FILES - does not concern me at all - and should not concern author of article, that heavily mixes public and personal use of archivers. If some of the points might be applicable to public use - perhaps, but it is questionable, that opinion of blog writer can have any authority on this matter, where everyone will be doing what is best for them, so the actual true value(where it is only worth to "prove" others how you are right and other are not) of this high opinionated article is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[causi]

Right. Because I'm a fan of not starving to death myself, I have no problem paying people for goods and services and hence don't agree with the "closed source is a sin" stance of the author. RAR is both faster and more pleasant to use on a daily basis than 7zip, so that's what I use for all my own files. If I'm going to host data or send it to someone who I know uses 7zip, then I'll use that. Generally though when I have a need to send compressed files I have no idea what the recipient has installed so I'm forced to use regular zip files.