What file extension is commonly associated with tar archives?

The commonly associated file extension with tar archives is .tar. However, in compressed forms, the .tgz extension represents a tar file that has been compressed using gzip. This compression is widely used because it reduces the file size and still maintains the tar format, which is suitable for archiving multiple files.

The .tar extension indicates a "tape archive" format that contains multiple files and directories in a single file. The .tgz format acknowledges the archive has been compressed with gzip, which is a standard practice in Unix/Linux environments to save space and facilitate faster transfers over the network.

In contrast, the other options refer to different archiving or compression methods. The .zip extension is associated with ZIP archives, while .tar.bz2 indicates a tar archive manually compressed with bzip2, which is another compression algorithm. The .rar extension is related to RAR archives, typically not standard in Unix/Linux environments. Thus, .tgz stands out as a recognized and practical format for compressing tar files using gzip.