Mini Explorer: Aptly named.

Mini Explorer is a the very tiny brother of Windows explorer, except this tiny browser is faster, leaner, and all around put together better. It might not have tabs like other shells, but it offers its own unique style to the explorer community.

-T&P: 400kb minimum to run, and has an INI file, meaning that Mini Explorer takes it up a notch.

-Freakin, freakin fast: Some may argue that it is fast, but I'd say heck yes it is! For me, explorer windows don't always open up instantly. ME (I'm lazy, I'm abbreviating) does. And I don't exaggerate much when I say "instantly." Explorer (at least for me) has a hard times sometimes when opening huge folders like Program files, but ME doesn't seem to. It takes a very simplistic approach.

-Explorer-like: I have it and Windows explorer side by side right now, and they're alot alike, in terms of features. ME has "New Folder," "New File," (which WE doesn't have (man, I am lazy, aren't I?)) cut, copy, paste, view from large icons, small icons, list or details, up one level, sort by, and refresh. True, WE has alot more options, but ME has all that I need, at least.

-Different icons!: This made me chuckle to myself when I first found it: ME is so small, but it comes with 5 icon options. Windows 98, XP, Vista, and even two linux distro files. And all you do is go to File > Options to change it. (It's the only thing in that options menu, besides "View hidden folders.") I don't know if you can make more, but I do know that you can delete ones that you don't want, if you need to save disc space (it's like 500kb extra....). It has Windows 95 built in, so that's always good.

So despite all of the goodness above, there are two main things that I find "meh"ish about ME. But it's really only one...I'll explain below:

-No address bar: I like to type on the fly, but ME doesn't have it. Oh well. Not too bad if you keep it hidden anyway.

-No search: Yes, ME does not have a search function, HOWEVER, the developer recently (December '08) fused ME and another of his programs Snowbird (a search utility), so now it really might be a replacement for explorer, search and all. I haven't looked into it. I actually just figured out about it today.

So technically, Mini Explorer 2.0 is not the latest version, kinda. But I put it up here because, it truth, it and the newest Snowbird are different programs, and maybe someone wants just an explorer. To be honest, I haven't transfered from Windows Explorer, but I want to some day....old habits die hard, I suppose.

Visit Mini Explorer (Madhaven's) website for download