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Search - "es file explorer"
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I would like to know some of you guys most used/preferred apps that you have been using it for long time or you will install them immediately after purchasing new phone/ formating/ installing custom ROM.
List them down if you feel like it, maybe some of them can be helpful to us. Here's mine list.
P.S. Apart from devRant
- ES file Explorer
- NoRoot firewall
- flynx
- greenify
- orbot
- Wunderlist
- medium
- xda labs
- Nova launcher8 -
FYI if you have ES file explorer get rid of it cause it has a major vuln that lets other extract files from your phone
https://xda-developers.com/es-file-...
There are many better alternatives, i personally use FX.
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...WHY TF DOES A FILE EXPLORER RUN AN HTTP SERVER IN BACKGROUND ?!24 -
I uninstalled ES File explorer couple months ago when reports emerged of them misusing data. Was unable to find other explorer until I came across Solid Explorer.
Amazing app. Had to pay something around 0.5$ or so but it's totally worth it.
Feature packed with uncluttered UI. Many themes to choose from. Really awesome. Hats off to devs
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...11 -
Any file manager without range selection is basically crippled.
Desktop PC file managers had the ability to select many files at once since at least the 1990s, yet smartphone file managers typically still lack it as of 2022. This means if I want to select a range of files, I have to tap each file individually. That's OK for - like - 20 files, but not for 1100 files. I'd need more time to select those files than the transfer would take, and if I accidentally hit anything that closes the app, I can start all over again. <sarcasm>That is how I wish to spend my day.</sarcasm>
In the early 2010s, ES File Explorer brought a dragless range selection feature, where only the first and last item had to be highlighted and a button pressed. This means over 5000 items could be selected in 10 seconds: tap item A, drag the scroll bar, tap item B, tap range selection icon, then done! But then Google came and said "sorry, you can't have nice things" (not vocally but through actions), and forcibly disabled write access to the microSD card to third-party applications. The only way to evade this restriction was through rooting.
Then, Google "blessed" us with storage access framework and then iOS-like scoped storage "to protect us". https://xda-developers.com/android-... . Oh, thank you for your protection by taking freedoms away!
The pre-installed file manager of Android still lacks range selection THIRTY YEARS after desktop computers came pre-installed with this feature. Shame on you, Google. This isn't innovative.
If Google will implement range selection, I guess they will make it half-assed by implementing drag-to-select, which is hardly more useful than individual tap selection for thousands of files. Then they tell us "you wanted range selection, here you are! Now don't bug us.". Sorry, but users don't want half-assed drag-to-select, but real tap-A-B-selection and a draggable scroll bar.
Some mobile file managers even lack a draggable scroll bar, meaning if I want to go near the center of the list, I have to swipe up like a dog or cat licks water from a bowl.8 -
It's 2023 and smartphone vendors' pre-installed file managers are slooooooowly beginning to catch up with the functionality that the third-party ES File Explorer already had in 2012.
Samsung's latest file manager "My Files" finally has a draggable scroll bar, background file transfer (one can browse files while a transfer is running), drag-to-select (which is still not nearly as fast as the instant A-to-B range selection of ES File Explorer which simulates shift+click selection on desktop), and even staying in the current directory after tapping on "Copy" or "Move" rather than going to the starting directory!
And finally, when copying or moving files to a MicroSD card or a USB-OTG device, files' date and time attributes are not discarded and reset to now, but the original date and time of the files are retained! ES File Explorer could do that with root access.
Dear Samsung, couldn't you have thought of these simple things a decade ago and saved your users lots of headaches?4 -
You can make your software as good as you want, if its core functionality has one major flaw that cripples its usefulness, users will switch to an alternative.
For example, an imaginary file manager that is otherwise the best in the world becomes far less useful if it imposes an arbitrary fifty-character limit for naming files and folders.
If you developed a file manager better than ES File Explorer was in the golden age of smartphones (before Google excercised their so-called "iron grip" on Android OS by crippling storage access, presumably for some unknown economic incentive such as selling cloud storage, and before ES File Explorer became adware), and if your file manager had all the useful functionality like range selection and tabbed browsing and navigation history, but it limits file names to 50 characters even though the file system supports far longer names, the user will have to rely on a different application for the sole purpose of giving files longer names, since renaming, as a file action, is one of the few core features of a file management software.
Why do I mention a 50-character limit? The pre-installed "My Files" app by Samsung actually did once have a fifty-character limit for renaming files and folders. When entering a longer name, it would show the message "up to 50 characters available". My thought: "Yeah, thank you for being so damn useful (sarcasm). I already use you reluctantly because Google locked out superior third-party file managers likely for some stupid economic incentives, and now you make managing files even more of a headache than it already is, by imposing this pointless limitation on file names' length."
Some one at Samsung's developer department had a brain fart some day that it would be a smart idea to impose an arbitrary limit on file name lengths. It isn't.
The user needs to move files to a directory accessible to a superior third-party file manager just to give it a name longer than fifty characters. Even file management on desktop computers two decades ago was better than this crap!
All of this because Google apparently wants us to pay them instead of SanDisk or some other memory card vendor. This again shows that one only truly owns a device if one has root access. Then these crippling restrictions that were made "for security reasons" (which, in case it isn't clear, is an obvious pretext) can be defeated for selected apps.2 -
Some mobile file managers kick me back to the beginning after selecting items for copying or moving.
When tapping on "copy" or "move" after selecting files/folders, some file managers like ES File Explorer (back when it was popular) conveniently remain in the current directory, whereas the stock Android file manager and many vendors' pre-installed file managers like that of Samsung kick me back to the initial directory. On phones with MicroSD, that's the storage selector, and on phones without, that's /storage/emulated/0/.
If I wanted to move files into a sub folder of the currently viewed directory, I have to navigate all the way back to that current directory, which is, needless to say, annoying.
Who thought it was a smart idea to kick the user back to the initial directory? But vendors' pre-installed file managers tend to be garbage anyway. Samsung's "My Files" file manager does not let me enter file names longer than 50 characters, does not let me change the extensions of files, does not support selecting files from search results or jumping to their parent directory, does obviously lack range selection, hides the status bar while opened (what's the point of that?!), its search feature is slow and sometimes crashes, and it can only search the entire device storage or memory card and not individual directories.
It's almost like Samsung deliberately tried to design a file manager as terrible as they possibly could.5 -
If I could create laws, I would pass a "software usability act" which would eliminate many annoyances we face daily.
For example, the law would mandate range selection in file managers, mandate time-stamped file names in camera and voice recording apps, and require that browsers open a new tab next to the currently open tab instead of at the end, and all user interfaces must have a dark mode to reduce eye strain, and all operating systems must have a blue light filter, text editors must create a temporary copy when saving to avoid corrupting the existing file, camera applications should not corrupt the entire video file when ending unexpectedly (crashing), cancelling file operations must not cause data loss ( https://support.google.com/photos/... ), no mandatory pull-to-refresh ( https://chromestory.com/2019/07/... ), to mention a few examples.
Mobile file managers commonly lack a range selection feature (also known as shift selection or A-to-B selection), where all items between two selected items of a list can be selected immediately. ES File Explorer had this in 2012, yet many fancy new file managers still don't have this. To select many items, each item needs to be tapped individually. This is an unacceptable annoyance.
This is not to be confused with the inferior drag-to-select which requires holding the finger on the screen until all desired items are selected. Drag-to-select is not range selection, only its ugly stepsister.
Ah yes, under the imaginary software usability act, Mozilla would have to say good-bye to its evil add-on signing. "For our protection" my arse.13