15 Windows Explorer Alternatives

Integrated text editor with unlimited size. Dynamic highlighting for the web.

Integrated zip/unzip features. Simply drag-n-drop files or click a
button. You can also turn your zip archives into self-extracting
archives the same way.

Integrated file search to quickly locate and jump to those lost files.

Integrated quick launch area for fast access to the programs you use the most.

Favorite buttons to quickly open those often used folders.

Dual-pane view for those that demand speed in file management.

Requires no installation, no data is written to the system
registry. A43’s configuration information is saved in a local .ini file.

Keep it on your pen/jump drive and take it where ever you go.

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

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Ac Browser Plus

Requirements: Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP

Download: http://www.konradp.com/products/acbplus/

Features:

ACFAT – find a file in a second! This service can index a chosen
drive, and so you can query this index in a second, more: drive
indexing.

Quick viewers.

Editorial Renaming. Rename files with ease, just like in a text editor.

Zip as folders, packing, unpacking with ease

Adding comments to files and directories

Script templates. You can write scripts (visual basic scripts,
batch scripts- .bat, or anything else), which can be executed in the
context of currently selected files or folders (thanks to the script
templates).

Multi Window Interface.

Smart Renaming.

The font color, and other font specifications can be defined by the user, separately for every files extension.

Hot Point – a small red rectangle on each file shows you the file properties, and quick view (images, text and multimedia).

File Finder

Thumbnails’ view

Ability to follow the links while searching files.

Quick Access Bar – Displaying most frequently used folders and
allowing you to filter out items from current file browser window

Keyboard shortcuts known from Norton Commander and Windows Explorer.

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

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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:

Tabbed browsing

Bookmarks

Text editor

File search

Thumbnails

Free disk space labels

Empty recycle bin button

Support for multiple languages

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

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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:

Powerful File Manager & Explorer Replacement

User-definable File Display Views

User-definable Toolbars, Menus, File Types

Advanced built-in Image and File Viewers

Built-in ZIP and Advanced FTP

Visually Synchronize Files & Find Duplicates

Advanced Search and Rename Functions

More Configurable than any other program

Easy Slideshows…and much more..

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

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ExplorerXP

Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP

Download: http://www.explorerxp.com/index.html#download (scroll to the bottom)

Homepage: http://www.explorerxp.com/

Features:

Tabbed interface

Easy access to My Computer, Recycle Bin , My Documents & Desktop

Drag & Drop with Explorer, the tab bar and special folders on the main toolbar.

Multy rename tool – allows to rename multiple files in one step.

Displays folder size information and the real size of compressed files & folders.

Folder Size Cache – greatly improves the speed of the folder size calculations between sessions.

Advanced copy/move.

Unicode support.

USB devices support.

Clean – recursively removes files that match given list of extentions or wildcards.

Groups – A group is a collection of folders, which users are able to access quickly or drag & drop files to them.

Configurable keyboard shortcuts.

Small download size – only 410 KB.

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

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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:

Far Manager is a program for managing files and archives in
Windows operating systems. Far Manager works in text mode and provides
a simple and intuitive interface for performing most of the necessary
actions: viewing files and directories, editing, copying and renaming
files and many other operations.

Customize it – Far Manager has a multi-language, easily
configurable interface. File system navigation is made easier through
the use of color highlighting and file sort groups.

Your task – your way. The functionality of Far Manager is greatly
extended by external DLL modules – plugins (made possible by a special
set of interfaces – the Plugins API). For example, archive support, the
FTP client, the temporary panel and the network browser are all
implemented as plugins included in the standard distribution of Far.

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

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FileMatrix

Requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT4 SP6, 2000, XP or Vista

Homepage: http://www.gardenerofthoughts.org/ideas/filematrix/index.htm

Features:

Basic. Extensive integrated help (configuration and help wizard,
hints), between 1 and 10 columns for navigation in directories, 30 sets
of columns called boards for organizing sets of directories, directory
tree navigator, thumbnail pictures, drag-and-drop between columns and
boards and to / from other applications, skins, special graphical
effects.

Advanced. 20 containers (which are lists of files that can store,
for example, the results of a search), picture converter (including the
ability to normalize pictures to a specified size), media player (with
the possibility to resume playing later), mouse gestures with a user
interface called mouse menu, file hover information (which includes a
thumbnail and a played media clip), text search with ranking (like an
online search engine), steganography integrated with the viewer /
editor (noise management included).

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

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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:

Dual-panel technology – horizontal and vertical

Optional tree view for each panel

Built in file viewer to view files in hex, binary, text or image format

File viewer inside archives too

Built in archive handling: ZIP (read, write), CAB (read, write), RAR (read)

Nested archive handling

Easy access to system folders, control panel, desktop and start menu

Copy, move, delete, rename files and folders

Wipe files

Create and verify MD5 checksums

File splitting

File properties and context menu

Calculation of folder size

Folder comparison / synchronization

Modification of file date and attributes

Folder / program favorites

File searching (inside archive too)

File filters for display

User defined columns for detailed view

Support for Tortoise icons

DOS command line

Multiple language support

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.

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Screenshots:

quick access to System Folders	freeCommander prefs
Extras menu	Quick access to Programs
default freeCommander view

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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:

Dual pane operation

Layout Manager

Add Notes to Your Files!

Customize Your File Folders with Color

File Info column

MP3 Collection Management

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

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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.

Better Wildcard Selecting Files And Directories Against Windows Explorer

Calculate Occupied Space: Disk Space Usage Analyser

Change file or directory date, time, attributes: read-only system hidden

Change Case of Files and Directories Names: lower, upper

Batch File Converter: convert coding CP1250, CP852, IBM EBCDIC, ASCII

Copy File and Directory Names (Filenames) to Windows Clipboard

Directory Size, Folder Size: total size of directory, disk usage information

Drive Information: Disk Label, Size, Space, and File System Analyser

Filter Files (Filenames) by Names Using Wildcards, Hide File Names

Find Files and Directories, Find Duplicate Files, Find Hidden File

Make Directory File List, List Files and Directories, Save to Text File

Quick Search: Focus File or Directory (Folder) Name

Shared Directories: View List, Explore Shares, Stop Sharing

Skip and Overwrite files confirmations during Copy and Move operations

Thumbnail Images, display photo thumbnails for our image gallery

Keyboard Shortcuts for Servant Salamander

Copy newer files: overwrite older and skip other existing files

Move or copy files in queue, queuing file operations

Copy, Move, Rename, Delete Files and Directories in Windows

Email Files as Attachments in Windows, Pack Large Files

Pack files and directories, Open, Browse, and Unpack archives

Compare Directories, Files by Size, Date, Time, Attributes, and Content

Shortcut Target: opens directory containing the target of a shortcut

NTFS Compress and Uncompress, NTFS Encrypt and Decrypt

Regular Expression: Find Files, Grep Files, Rename Files, Viewer

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

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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:

Proven Two Window Technology

Extensive Archive Support

Add-In Interface

Macros

Enhanced FTP Functions

Native 64-bit Version for Windows XP/2003 x64 Edition

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

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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:

Direct access to Network Neighbourhood

Supports Drag & Drop with Explorer/the Desktop etc.

Command line for starting of programs with parameters, simply by
typing the program name or by pressing ctrl+enter or ctrl+shift+enter.

Configurable button bar and Start menu (User-defined commands) to
place your frequently used DOS or Windows programs into a drop-down
menu. The actual directory and/or the file under the cursor can be
delivered to the application.

Configurable main menu.

Built in file viewer (Lister) to view files of any size in hex,
binary or text format, using either the ASCII- (DOS) or the ANSI-
(Windows) character set. The line width and font size can now be
changed. You can even view files inside archives! New: Support for
Unicode UTF-8 format.

Bitmap viewer in Lister, additional formats through Irfanview (see addons).

HTML- and Unicode-Viewer in Lister.

Parallel port transfer function (direct cable connection), works between Win95/98/NT/2000/3.1 and DOS!

Thumnbails view shows preview images in file lists.

Custom columns view allow to show additional file details.

Total Commander comes in the following languages: English, German,
French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Spanish, Czech,
Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and now also Hebrew, Greek, Afrikaans,
Catalan, Turkish and Ukrainian

Built-in FTP client supports most public FTP servers

Archives are handled like subdirectories. You can easily copy files to and from archives.

Extended copying, moving, renaming and deleting of entire trees (Enables deleting “full” directories).

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

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XPlorer

NOTE: a number of folks have mentioned that XPlorer
may include a trojan (AVG catches it as Trojan Horse Generic10.AEGX).
I’ve removed the download link, but left the URL available if you want
to copy and paste it into your browser and try downloading it/living on
the edge.

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:

True multitabbed interface with independent combo, tree and list for each tab.

Blazing fast program execution.

Small footprint, can be run from floppy disks, USB devices, hard disks, …

Quick startup time.

High productive interface, almost every command is accessible optionally by keyboard.

Internal file viewer.

Internal file editor.

File toucher.

Command prompt here feature.

Split files in fragments.

Join fragment files.

Clean unneeded files.

Select files by wildcard selection.

Show files by filter.

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

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xplorer²

Requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003

Download: http://zabkat.com/x2down.htm

Homepage: http://zabkat.com

Features:

Shell namespace explorer

Tabbed dual-pane interface

Instant preview of files

Browsing flexibility

View & edit text files

Extended file information

Search for files everywhere, using arbitrary criteria

Find text within office, Adobe PDF and other documents

Manage files from many folders simultaneously

Compare and synchronize folders

Discover and cleanup duplicate files

Execute DOS commands and scripts

Customizable user interface

Help and assistance where you need it

Individual folder settings

Visual filters and selection engine

Advanced file management

Robust file transfers

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

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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:

Tabbed Browsing

Searches in Tabs

The Address Bar accepts not just folders, but also files, URLs, and search terms

The Tree and List offer a suite of (partly revolutionary) highlighting options to increase visual grip.

Catalog: Your favorite locations reside deep down in some heavily nested structures? Lift them to the surface!

Panel: The hideable tabbed panel at the bottom provides quick
access to information (file properties and previews) and action (Find
Files, Reports).

Find Files: XYplorer is a file manager featuring a high-end search engine

Save your current search settings to a template for later re-use.
Very handy with complex search patterns or distributed search locations.

New in 5.20 Breadcrumb: Ctrl+Backspace will pop up the coolest
breadcrumb you can get. It takes no screen space, is 100%
keyboard-driven, and takes you up and down relative to your current
location.

New in 5.20 Drop-Text-To-File: You can drag & drop a
selectable text or data chunk from any other application onto a folder
in XYplorer, where it will be automatically converted into a *.txt-file
or an *.rtf file, depending on the content.

My Network Places, Server Management: Network servers are internally stored and remembered between sessions!

Instant Preview of image (incl. PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, ICO and many
more, using high-quality resampling for shrinking/zooming), audio, and
video files (displaying detailed media information).

Thumbnails of image files can be shown right in the details view, introducing the unique “Mouse Down Blow Up” functionality.

Instant Preview of installed and uninstalled TrueType and Type-1 font files (displaying detailed font information).

Instant Preview of Office files, and of HTML, MHT, PHP files (including configurable server mappings) with printing option.

larger list of features here

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

Source: SimpleHelp.net