WAR – web application archive is a jar file used to distribute a collection of JavaServer Pages, Java Servlets, Java classes, xml FILES, tag libraries, static web pages (html & others) and others resources that constitute a web application.
JAR – Java Archive, is an archive file format typically used to aggregate many Java class files and ASSOCIATED metadata and resources into one file to distribute application software, libs on the Java platform.
EAR – Enterprise Archive is used to PACKAGE one or more moduels into a single archive so the deployment of the various modules into app server happen simultaneiously and coherently.