A43 File Management Utility
Ac Browser Plus – file manager for Windows
CubicExplorer
Explorer++
ExplorerXP
FileMatrix
XPlorer
Archive for the ‘replacement’ Category
Free Windows Explorer Replacements
August 21, 200815 Windows Explorer alternatives compared and reviewed
August 21, 2008Windows Explorer, the default file manager for Microsoft Windows, hasn’t really changed all that much over the years. Below you’ll find reviews, screenshots and links to download 10 11 12 14 15 different alternatives.
If I haven’t included your favorite file manager (for Windows..) in this list, by all means please leave a comment below or feel free to contact me. I’d be more than happy to include it.
Update: I’ve done another 10 Windows Explorer reviews.
Name | Cost | Trial? | Rating (x/5) |
A43 | free | n/a | ***½ |
Ac Browser Plus | $21.00 | yes | ** |
CubicExplorer | free | n/a | *** |
Directory Opus | AUD $85.00 | yes (30 days) | **** |
ExplorerXP | free | n/a | *** |
Far Manager | $25.00 | yes (40 days) | ***½ |
FileMatrix | 24.00 | yes | *** |
freeCommander | free | n/a | ***½ |
PowerDesk Pro/Standard | $39.95/free | n/a | **¾ |
Servant Salamander (2.5) | $30 | yes (30 days) | **** |
SpeedCommander | 37.95 | yes (60 days) | *** |
Total Commander | $34 | yes (30 days) | **** |
XPlorer | free | n/a | ***½ |
xplorer² | 19.95 | yes (21 days) | *** |
XYplorer | 29.95 | yes (21 days) | **** |
A43
Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP
Download: http://www.primitus.us/a43/
Features:
Thoughts:
A43 took up about 18mb of RAM after using it for 5 minutes. It dropped down to 3mb of RAM after 15 seconds of not using it. Its response time was very quick while renaming, moving and copying files. The drag-and-drop zip/unzip and rar/unrar feature is pretty neat – if I made zip files often I would find this very helpful. Also, you can fit A43 on a floppy and take it with you to use on any PC (doesn’t require an installation). The built-in text editor was easy to use, as was ‘quick launch’ section. The ‘file filter’ feature (use wildcards to sort files) is well located and works exactly as you’d expect. Between the features and the price, this is a file manager that I won’t delete right away.
Screenshots:
default view |
easy unzipping |
Tools list |
bottom pane – quick launch |
image preview |
Ac Browser Plus
Requirements: Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Download: http://www.konradp.com/products/acbplus/
Features:
Thoughts:
Lots of features, but the interface feels very “Windows 95″ at times. If it was free I would consider leaving it installed and maybe try it out for a while longer. Because some of the other file managers are as feature-rich (or more so) and have a more consistent (and at times much more attractive) interface, I can only give it two stars out of five.
Screenshots:
easy to view detailed info |
helpful scripts |
purchase to change background |
thumbnail view |
extra navigation |
ac browser plus options |
CubicExplorer
Requirements: Windows 95 (untested), 98, ME, NT (untested), 2000, XP, Vista (works, not supported yet)
Download: http://www.cubicreality.com/ce/download
Homepage: http://www.cubicreality.com/
Features:
Thoughts:
Here’s why I gave CubicExplorer 3 stars instead of 2 or 2½ – it has potential, and it’s free. Since it’s not even at version 1.0 yet (0.77a as of 10/13/06), it can only get better (right?). Unfortunately, the 0.77a has been around since March of this year, and the forum indicates that work on .80a started a while ago (but it’s still not out). With all of that said, the Quick View feature is something that I would use, frequently. Showing actual html code when an .html file is selected, rather than a ‘preview’ of the web page, is ideal for me. The built in text editor is excellent for stashing snipits of text, html, web page addresses etc, and allowing that text to be a tab is fantastic. While this version has too few features for me, I will certainly give the next one a try.
Screenshots:
default view |
CubicExplorer prefs |
Text as a tab |
Quick View files |
Directory Opus
Requirements: Windows 95/98/ME or NT4/2000/XP
Download: http://www.gpsoft.com.au/DScripts/Download.asp
Homepage: http://www.gpsoft.com.au/Index.html
Features:
Thoughts:
Directory Opus is a great File Manager. There are a lot of features and options, and nearly every aspect of this program is customizable. It really is an Explorer replacement, and it offers to do so during the installation – so when you open any folder, Directory Opus will launch. The built-in FTP client works exactly as you’d expect. The many different view options are easy to access and just “make sense”. While in use, Directory Opus took up 28MB of memory on my system. The instant that it’s minimized, its memory use dropped to 1MB. If I used Windows more often, I would gladly pay the $85.00 to purchase this software. In fact, the next time I have a day job that requires Windows use, I will.
Screenshots:
quick ftp connect |
contextual (and excellent) auto-help |
thumbnail view |
extra (audio) file info |
nag screen |
id3 editing |
huge “file” list |
replace Windows Explorer |
ExplorerXP
Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP
Download: http://www.explorerxp.com/index.html#download (scroll to the bottom)
Homepage: http://www.explorerxp.com/
Features:
Thoughts:
Pretty straight forward Explorer-like File Manager. While it doesn’t have as many features as many of the other reviewed file managers, it is free (for non-commercial use) and makes a great “first” upgrade for beginners. Anyone who has used Windows Explorer for more than 5 minutes will feel right at home using ExplorerXP.
Screenshots
default view |
two windows |
ExplorerXP prefs |
command list |
Far Manager
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 or XP
Download: http://www.farmanager.com/download.php?l=en
Homepage: http://www.farmanager.com/index.php?l=en
Features:
Thoughts:
Far Manager is a pretty old-school File Manager. Mouse support is provided, but this is a File Manager for keyboard commandos. Very cool plugins add great extra features (FTP, email, Winamp control etc). I’m not sure that I’ll pay for this File Manager, but I will be using it until the 40 days is up before I decide.
Screenshots:
Far Manager default view |
execute a command in Far |
select multiple files |
built in text viewer |
search in Far |
FileMatrix
Requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT4 SP6, 2000, XP or Vista
Homepage: http://www.gardenerofthoughts.org/ideas/filematrix/index.htm
Features:
Thoughts:
FileMatrix is quite unique among all of the other File Managers reviewed in this article. The interface is much different than the typical explorer-style manager. The use of “boards” and “containers” makes viewing and grouping files a snap. If you’re tired of the same-old-file-manager, give this one a try. And be sure to make use of the included Wizards and help files – they will really come in handy.
Screenshots:
thumbnail view |
right-click options |
tools options |
image converter |
config and help wizard (very helpful!) |
nag screen |
freeCommander
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT (from version 4.0), 2000, XP, Vista (?)
Download: http://www.freecommander.com/fc_downl_en.htm
Homepage: http://www.freecommander.com/
Features:
Thoughts:
‘Easy access to system folders’ is one of the features that first jumped out at me. My immediate thought was “why isn’t that in all file managers?” I may have overlooked it in some of the others, so I certainly won’t say that this is the only one that has this feature. “Size of folders” (not enabled by default) does slow things down – as freeCommander calculates and displays the folder size. With that said, it’s very handy to try and figure out where your hard drive space has gone, and easy to get to when you need it. The image preview was a bit slow for me compared to most of the others. The screenshot feature allows you to chose between image types (bmp and jpg) and even adjust the quality. I think the biggest drawback to freeCommander is the lack of built in FTP support, and I suppose it’s not that big of a deal. This program, though free, is donation-worthy.
Screenshots:
quick access to System Folders |
freeCommander prefs |
Extras menu |
Quick access to Programs |
default freeCommander view |
PowerDesk Pro/Standard
Requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, or 2003
Download: http://www.shop.avanquest.com/usa/trial_form.php?pid=686
Homepage: http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html
Features:
Thoughts:
OK here’s my beef.. It’s not a bad File Manager at all. It’s very customizable, has all of the features you’d expect, but the ones you really want to try (add notes to files, ftp, sync folders) are only available in the Pro version (which there’s no trial for). The Standard version is free, but has a ‘nag’ bar that takes up too much screen real-estate. I would much rather a 10 day fully-functional demo version before I decide to lay down $40. Also, they added me to a mailing list when I specifically said I did not want to join (you must provide an email address to download the demo).
Screenshots:
horizontal view |
file filter |
PowerDesk Standard options |
Tools list |
customize the toolbar |
Servant Salamander (2.5)
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, 2000, or XP
Download: http://www.altap.cz/download.html
Homepage: http://www.altap.cz/
Features:
This is a list of the main features for version 2.5 RC1. All details/features for v2.5 can be found here, and v2.0 here.
Thoughts:
At the suggestion of a number of commenters, I downloaded and installed Servant Salamander 2.5 RC1. It’s another Norton Commander-style inspired file manager, and a pretty great one at that. It has every feature you’d expect, and then some. The plug-ins allow for features that go above and beyond a file manager (screenshots, encrypt and decrypt, sftp/scp etc). The ability to set a ’skill level’ is a great idea. Executing commands is not only easy, but the command window doesn’t automatically close once the command has been executed! As it stands right now, I can’t pick a “winner” between Servant Salamander and Total Commander. I’m quite sure that it just comes down to personal preference. If Norton Commander-style file managers are your thing, I would strongly suggest you try both Total Commander and Servant Salamander, and decide for yourself which is best. If you’re on a limited budget, go for freeCommander. When the demo versions expire, I plan on buying either Total or Servant – I’ll update this after I decide.
Screenshots:
default view |
Servant Salamander plug-ins |
|
Servant Salamander prefs |
set a user level |
|
map network drives |
execute commands |
SpeedCommander
Requirements: Windows 95/98/98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Windows XP/2003 x64 Edition
Download: http://www.speedproject.de/enu/download.html
Homepage: http://www.speedproject.de/enu/speedcommander/index.html
Features:
Thoughts:
Lots of features (built in browser is cool) and very snappy response times. Macros are simple to use. Worth checking out, but the price is a bit steep. If I had an x64 version of Windows I would be anxious to try out this app.
Screenshots
default view |
View options |
File options |
Run a command |
Preview files |
Launch apps |
Total Commander
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. 16bit version available for Win 3.1. Another for Windows CE and the Pocket PC.
Download: http://www.ghisler.com/download.htm
Homepage: http://www.ghisler.com/
Features:
Thoughts:
Having only used it for about 30 minutes total (so far), take these comments with a grain of salt. Total Commander appears to be the fastest file manager in terms of response times. I asked it to calculate the size of 14 folders (that contained a couple hundred files) and it immediatley gave me the answer. The hard drive didn’t clunk away trying to count files, it just happened. As the screenshots below demonstrate, Total Commander looks very old school (though there are many options to customize the look and feel). As the name implies, it’s styled after Norton Commander, and as you’d expect it can be completely controlled via the keyboard. At $34 USD I’m curious to compare it to Free Commander (see comments at the bottom). I reserve the right to bump this up to 4 stars after I look at Free Commander
Screenshots:
Total Commander prefs |
default view |
FTP view |
customize the button bar |
calculate file/folder sizes |
XPlorer
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003 or Vista
Download: http://guti.webcindario.com/static.php?page=XPlorer (scroll to download section)
Features:
Thoughts:
Arguably the most Windows Explorer-like of all the reviewed File Managers, XPlorer is certainly better than the default Windows Explorer. Here’s my only real complaint – when you delete a file, it remains ‘visible’ in the list of files until you refresh the screen. And you can only refresh by hitting F5 on your keyboard (no right-click, no Edit > Refresh etc). That one annoying ‘feature’ is enough for me not to use it (I replicated this problem on 3 different Windows XP machines). If that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, by all means check this one out because it’s not bad otherwise.
Screenshots:
default view |
right-click options |
Xplorer options |
File list |
xplorer²
Requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003
Download: http://zabkat.com/x2down.htm
Homepage: http://zabkat.com
Features:
Throughts:
The ability to search for files everywhere, with Omni-Finder, is actually very cool/powerful. The built-in Help is very useful, as it explains all of the features (and how to use them) clearly, with illustrations. At first glance xplorer² appears fairly average, digging deeper shows it to be a powerful File Manager.
Screenshots:
default view |
preview window |
Tools list |
System navigation |
Commands via a container |
XYplorer
Requirements: Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP or Vista
Download: http://www.xyplorer.com/download.htm
Homepage: http://www.xyplorer.com/index.htm/
Features:
Thoughts:
Wow. It only took a couple of minutes of looking around to see some features that I’d never seen before (drop text to file, ctrl+backspace breadcrumb) – and some that I’ve seen before but never this detailed (see the “Rename Special” screenshot below). If you click and hold the left mouse button on an image (in the Preview area) it enlarges until you release the mouse button. Very cool. XYplorer appears to have a slighly larger memory-footprint than Directory Opus (the only other Explorer-style file manager that I gave 4 stars), but it is less expensive.
Screenshots:
default view |
Rename special |
hover info |
Tools menu |
XYplorer prefs |
customize the Toolbar |
If you’re looking for even more, I’ve done another 10 Windows Explorer reviews/overviews.
UltraExplorer Manages Your Files On the Go
August 21, 2008
Windows only: Windows Explorer alternative UltraExplorer offers dual pane and tabbed browsing, plus a handy “Drop Stack” staging area where you can drag files to temporarily park them, for easy batch operations. Command line lovers will like the Command Line box at the bottom of the UltraExplorer window; you can even set the command prompt to stay synced to whatever folder you are browsing. You can make UltraExplorer portable after its initial installation, too–copy the files from the /APPS/
directory in the installation folder to your USB drive to do so. For other file management options check out our Five Best Alternative File Managers. UltraExplorer is a free download for Windows only.
Explorer++ Improves On Windows Explorer
August 21, 2008
Windows only: Alpha file manager Explorer++ is a promising free alternative to Windows Explorer that offers features it sorely lacks, like tabbed browsing, secure file deletion, file merging and splitting, instant command line access, and keyboard shortcuts. Explorer++ is still in alpha and may not be ready for full-time use the way Xplorer 2 is, but it’s still a simple, functional, and free app worth keeping an eye on. If you’re sick of Windows Explorer’s paucity of features, shareware TotalCommander is our readers’ pick for best alternative file manager; you can also power up Windows Explorer itself with free add-ons. Explorer++ is a free download for Windows only.
Replace Windows Explorer with Xplorer2
August 21, 2008Let’s face it: for advanced file manipulation, Windows File Explorer stinks. But like Firefox is a must-have replacement for Internet Explorer, a file manager called Xplorer2 blows Windows Explorer out of the water for anyone who browses multiple folders, copies, pastes, moves and searches the PC filesystem frequently.
Using Xplorer2’s tabbed, dual pane interface, keyboard shortcuts and killer advanced features, you’re in total control of your PC’s files. Let’s take a look.
Download and install Xplorer2
The “lite” version of Xplorer2 has a few features disabled, but it’s far from limited; it’s free for personal or academic use. A license for the pro version costs a reasonable $30, and there’s a full 30-day trial to check out pro features. For the purposes of this article, we’ll stick to the free Xplorer Lite (where locked “pro” features are denoted by a “[P]” in the menus.)
Download Xplorer2 Lite from here and launch it. The self-contained program is even thumb drive-friendly.
Triple threat interface
First thing you’ll notice off the bat is that Xplorer2 displays file listings from two folders at once in one window. This makes a lot of sense, since a lot of the time you’re copy or moving files between folders. Also, in the far left pane, there’s an easy-to-navigate directory tree of your computer, as shown (click to enlarge).
To quickly switch between the two open folder panes, hit the Tab key. The active pane will have a white background, the inactive will be in beige. To turn on or off the directory tree pane, from the View menu, check or uncheck “Show Tree.”
Tabbed Exploring
If the dual pane view wasn’t enough, you can also open up sets of folders you work with frequently in tabs. From the File menu, choose “New Tab” or simply hit Ctrl+Ins to open a new tab. Move between tabs with your keyboard with Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right arrow.
You can even rename a tab for easy visual reference. Just right-click on it and choose rename.
Bookmark folders and files
Much like Firefox, in Xplorer2 you can bookmark folders and assign keywords to open them quickly. To add a folder you frequent to your bookmarks, from the Bookmarks menu choose “Add Current.” To organize your bookmarks, hit the “Organize” Bookmarks menu item, which will bring up something like this:
To bookmark a file, add its name to the end of the bookmark path. Then, when the bookmark is chosen, the folder will open with that particular file selected. (For instance, when I hit my “todo” bookmark, todo.txt is selected and I can hit Enter to open it.)
FTP folders
The eagle-eyed will notice an FTP server in my bookmarks, pictured above. You can open folders on a remote server via FTP in Xplorer2, which makes copying files back and forth from your web or home server inside the tabbed interface a snap.
Security alert: Xplorer2 only supports plain FTP (not encrypted), and you’re required to put your password in the bookmark itself. The format is ftp://you:password@yourserver.com. This isn’t the most secure way to FTP, so proceed with caution.
Filter your files
Xplorer2 makes it dead easy to work with sets of files. You can use a filter to select all the files that start with G or end in .png. Simply type your filter into Xplorer2’s address bar (like “*.txt”) or from the Mark menu, choose “Select Group.” From there you can copy, move or otherwise manipulate the set of files.
Keyboard shortcuts
Xplorer2 has a very extensive set of mature keyboard shortcuts. First, it’s got incremental search and select for a directory listing. Just type the first few letters of a file or folder name and Xplorer2 will instantly move down and select it in the list. Hold down the shift key to do incremental search by file extension (like Shift+tx will take you to the first .txt file in the list.)
To copy files between open folders, use F5. To navigate to a particular drive letter, use Ctrl+Shift+Letter (like Ctrl+Shift+C) to go the drive’s root.
Lifehacker reader Ludwig summarized his favorite Xplorer2 keyboard shortcuts in a grid that makes a nice cheat sheet.
Split and merge files
If you’ve got a multi-gigabyte file – like a video or disk image – you want to transport on a series of smaller capacity CD-R’s or thumb drives, Xplorer2 can split the file into small parts and reassemble them later. To do so, from the Actions menu choose “Split” and select the file part sizes. To put the file back together, select all the parts (make sure they’re sorted by name so they’re in the right join order!) and from the Actions menu, choose Join.
RTFM
We’ve barely scratched the surface of what Xplorer2 can do here, so if you’re looking for ways to streamline common file manipulation actions you have to do on a regular basis, be sure to give the Xplorer2 manual a look-see, which is available as a separate download.
Alternatives to Xplorer2
Finally, Xplorer2 might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Lifehacker readers have also recommended UltraExplorer, TotalCommander and CubicExplorer for replacing Windows Explorer.
What are your biggest Explorer gripes, or Xplorer2 tricks? Tell the world in the comments.