Top 10 Windows File Managers

[admin]

FYI, your beloved XY is found in a "Top 10 Windows File Managers" (5 of which I never heard of):

http://riseagain.wordpress.com/2007/05/ ... -managers/

[JustinF]

Cool. I saw XY mentioned in another similar blog post today, except they actually gave a 3 or 4 sentence summary of each one. In both articles ExplorerXP was mentioned, which I find sort of hard to believe. I used ExplorerXP before I stumbled on the great XYplorer...it had several glaring bugs and missing features and the author never fixed them. In fact I don't think it's been updated in 2+ years!

Anyway, now that I've found XY, theres no looking back!

[admin]

ExplorerXP is free, that's why. Being free is feature number one for some people. It carries them back to mom and dad, or to their imagination of how it should have been with mom and dad. Or they buy the idea that getting sth for free means saving money, so by using freeware they kind of gain 30$ without having to work for it. Or whatever... there must be some strong psychological force at work that keeps people happy while working with an (often) inferior tool ("shitty but free"). Of course, this lack of commitment and self-respect leads to an understream of guilt which has to be covered with some pseudo-religious ideology which you can observe in many freeware groups on the net, where freeware is praised as "good" in a moral manner and payware is demonized as sinful.

... well, I'd rather should have my first coffee before posting...

[j_c_hallgren]

ExplorerXP is free, that's why. Being free is feature number one for some people.

As someone who relies on freeware extensively and almost exclusively (like 99.8%), I'd agree that for me it's the main reason for my using a particular product...yes, some of what I use is the "lite" vers of a paid product as that is all that I need, and others were included with a hardware purchase (scanner, etc), but XY is, I believe, the only software that I recall paying the vendor directly for! The other two that I "bought" were older vers bought on eBay, as the current vers were not suited for my older hardware.

However, in terms of hours devoted to a product, I've spent hundreds more hours on this forum than I've actually actively used XY, so if that counts for something, and I hope it does, then I've 'paid' a fortune for XY and loved almost every minute of it!

[jacky]

Being free is feature number one for some people.

Yeah, count me in! Of course being free is a very important thing, especially if you consider that (esp. on Windows) one has to pay for everything, if you want good softwares: browser, file manager, text editor, FTP, picture editor, email, compression, etc
That being said... (and I agree with your "freeware is praised as "good" in a moral manner and payware is demonized as sinful" comment)

there must be some strong psychological force at work that keeps people happy while working with an (often) inferior tool ("shitty but free").

...but let's not reverse it either! There are a lot of great free app out there, even some much better than payware. It's true though that these days more & more people expect to find free (if not open source) software and want them to be as good, fast, powerful, support-included, etc as any commercial app. Still, there are also people that do appreciate & support free softwares, and donates. Obvisouly they might not as many, but they're out there.

And yeah, back then, "free" was indeed on my list of pros for TV3, but it wasn't the only one. And for a soft I barely use, I may have settle for "lesser quality but free".
But when it comes to soft I use a lot, rely on, etc I would never do that. Quality still means something.

I use a lot of free softwares, not because they're free, well not only , but (also) because they're the best I've found.


And to change subject, or get back on it?, ExplorerXP might just be there because it's free indeed (haven't tried it, but the website says "© 2003-2005" and they're forums are just spam & angry bots that couldn't get in here it seems) but I've come accross a few of those lists, and for many of them I don't think the file managers have been really tested (that much).
Seriously, sometimes can be listed a file manager that have like even less features or options that Explorer, that can absolutely not be used in a real world situation (ie. to actually do something else than looking at it), but it will have a dual pane so it's much better than anything else in the world, of course...

[zridling]

I agree with Don. In my experience of keeping a "Great Software List," you'd be amazed at how most people equate free with better. I don't get it; I've never understood that. Even if software is free, I think it should at least be donationware, although the vast majority would never think of donating a small amount for every upgrade or update.

I love FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), but what most people don't realize is that most "free" software in this category is actually commercial software. Judging the quality of an app should not even take into account price. Of course, affordabiity is important to all, but I truly feel that somone who has developed a good program should be able to make a living from it.

If you want to see this in practice, lurk FileForum.com. A lot of software is released as free software in its first or second version. If it's good and wildly popular, the ratings are 4.5/5 or better every time. Then the dev takes the app commercial/shareware, and as soon as he does, that wild popularity plummets. Happens every time.

I can't code my name. I don't understand coding, except for dinky HTML and XML. If I could do it, I would. But coding well is hard. I thought Directory Opus was well-coded and then I found XYplorer and it blew DOpus out of the water by being eaiser to user, faster, smaller, and more efficient in virtually every way. That ain't no small feat.

[CitizenD]

What makes "great software" is pretty subjective, and for a lot of people price is an important part. Take for example a piece of software on your list Zaine - ACDSee. I installed version 9 recently and once installed (after choosing "no" to the yahoo toolbar install) it tried to connect to an ACDSee server without asking me first, which failed and hung for a while as I am behind a firewall, then asked for an email address to send an unlock code. This is something it should have done BEFORE installing itself. I hit cancel, it loaded anyway with a splashscreen telling me I had 7 days of my trial remaining when the website said I had a 30 day trial. Even if it allows thirty days once I "register" it is misleading. It then brings up a few different screens trying to sell me things and then I get to the main interface. This is a very bad start. The interface is well laid out, I'll give it that, but for the simple home use I want in a photo manager I can find the features elsewhere without the bloat. For you however, these might not be an issue and the $80 price tag is worth it.

Another example is image editing. The industry leader is clearly Adobe Photoshop but again, for the small amount of "hobby" editing and digital art that I do, the thousands of dollars price tag is simply too much to justify how much and what features I will use. Paint Shop Pro is more in my price and feature range, and The Gimp has most features I would use anyway with the free cost offset my a slightly steeper learning curve. Add on to that the fact that I can run The Gimp in Windows and on my Linux box and that feature alone bumps it up - something that may not affect the next user.

Everyone has a 'great software' list that has it's own set of important attributes which may or may not include price.

Cheers,

D

[axfleming]

I agree with Don. In my experience of keeping a "Great Software List," you'd be amazed at how most people equate free with better.

This may be true for the average stingy home user (whatever happened to the adage, "you get what you pay for?"), but I can definitely tell you that in the IT Business Sector this is absolutely the opposite.
All techs know that if you are running a 24/7 operation needing 6 nines availability, you look for "unfree" software.
Just take a look at Larry Ellison.
It is almost impossible to get the CIO to sign off on something that is free.
Only with a RedHat or a Novell did Linux make significant inroads in the enterprise.

For people whose job is to make money with their software, free is most certainly NOT automatically associated with better.

[axfleming]

Free software is better in that the SOURCE CODE is freely available, not that it is free of cost.
This is why they had to change to using the terminology, Open Source.
Most software that is free of charge without easily accessible source code is generally quite shoddy compared to their commercial counterparts.

People who insist on not paying for any software are just stingy and cheap.