Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Freeware, Open Source
MuCommander is a powerful, cross-platform file manager
by Lee Mathews Oct 24th 2008 at 1:00PM
We've covered many, many Explorer replacements here in the past, so I was a little surprised that MuCommander hadn't been written up yet.
What makes MuCommander stand out is that it is free, open source, and cross-platform. The author's web site provides downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux (.tar.gz) as well as a Debian package, portable version, and a Java Web Start package.
It's actually the first JWS application I've come across since I started reviewing for Download Squad. It loaded fairly quickly on my netbook, and ridiculously fast on my quad-core AMD desktop.
MuCommander presents a skinnable, dual-pane view for file management. There's no tab support, though I don't consider that a major shortcoming - especially considering its other features are numerous, and extremely useful.
For starters, there's built-in support for FTP, SFTP, Samba, HTTP, NFS, and Bonjour. Several types of archives can be explored without extracting: zip, rar, tar, gzip, bzip2, iso, nrg, deb, and lst. MuCommander can create archives (press ctrl+I to pack) and even modify zip files on the fly without having to recompress the entire archive
There's also a command shell window with scrolling output, credential manager, and favorite locations list.
MuCommander is a fantastic file manager, and well worth a test drive for any user - regardless of OS.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tlove said 2:42PM on 10-24-2008
where has this been hiding! im loving it, its a little poky on the directory listing and seems to be missing some things but hey its only about a year old.
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jfjb said 3:25PM on 10-24-2008
cross-platform, yes.
open source, yes.
fast, OK.
light, with +34MB footprint (on Windows) ???
Q-dir, takes only 13MB footprint, looks feels and works faster, very versatile and flexible open source too, although not cross-platform (Windows only, as far as I know) but still 1/3 of memory use.
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jfjb said 11:29PM on 10-27-2008
Lee, can you find something really interesting to talk about?
Gator said 11:10AM on 11-21-2008
This is actually quite popular on Mac.
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vonderkinde said 2:11PM on 12-26-2008
I don't want to start a flame war, but I sometimes wonder what people are thinking when good reviews are given to software like MuCommander. I have been looking for a file manager, one that doesn't omit any of the functionality I have become accustomed to with Windows Explorer. Noticeably missing from MuCommander, are the standard context menu, an undo feature, and the desktop folder from the topmost level in the tree view. Add MuCommander to the endless list of apps that look pretty, but fall short on functionality. Apparently, the developers are too busy adding features that are easy to implement, but not features that are useful. BTW, XYplorerfree is the best app available IMHO - it unfortunately does lack an "undo".
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