To activate this dialog select "Settings…" command in Options menu and click on "Security" tab. The dialog contents are described below.
If you enable this option, you can specify the list of potentially dangerous file masks in input field below. It is allowed to enter several masks separated by spaces. WinRAR will skip files matching any of these masks when extracting or opening archived files.
This option may help to protect users from infected email attachments. For example, if you enter:
*.scr *.pif *.exe
in this field, it will prohibit users to unpack, view and run .scr, .pif and .exe files with WinRAR.
Internet browsers can add so called Mark of the Web to downloaded files. It is stored in Zone.Identifier NTFS alternate data stream and provides the information about file security zone. Various software can use it for security purposes.
This WinRAR option controls propagating the archive Mark of the Web to extracted files. If propagating is enabled, WinRAR attempts to read Mark of the Web associated with archive file and if it is present, assigns it to files extracted from this archive. It is possible to prohibit propagating, allow it for several predefined file groups of extracted files, for all extracted files or for files matching user defined file masks. Several user defined masks separated by spaces can be entered here.
If "Zone value only" option is on, only the security zone value is copied. If it is off, all available Mark of the Web fields, such as a download location or IP address, are copied. While these additional fields might help to identify a file source, they can be a privacy concern if file is shared with other persons.
"Save file streams" option in Archive name and parameters dialog can be used to preserve source files Mark of the Web when archiving, so it is restored when extracting.
Command line equivalent of "Propagate Mark of the Web" option is -om switch.
This group of options controls the delete mode for temporary files in WinRAR temporary folder generated when processing already existing archives. It involves external or internal viewer operations, executing an archived file or unpacking with the drag and drop.
If "Never" is selected, temporary files are removed using the standard system delete function and they can be recovered with special software sometimes. This is a fastest, but less secure way to deal with temporary files.
In "Always" mode, before deleting temporary files are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent their recovery. This is a noticeably slower and more secure approach.
If you selected "Encrypted only", temporary files are removed with the secure and slow wipe function if WinRAR identified an archive containing these files as encrypted. Otherwise a quick standard delete is applied.
This option modifies behavior of Scan archive for viruses command. By default it is enabled, so WinRAR proposes to select virus scanner name and parameters every time when activating the virus scanning command. If you use only one antivirus, it is possible to skip the antivirus selection step by turning this option off.