For years, ES File Explorer was the explorer app for your Android. But the developers have overloaded the app with junk in a quest for more revenue. Too bad, but luckily there are plenty of alternatives!
In the early days of Android, ES File Explorer was a reliable explorer app for accessing files on your device, memory card, or even network locations. Over the past year and a half, updates to ES File Explorer have been a constant source of negative publicity. Instead of improving the app functionally, the increasingly questionable developers are adding weird stuff. It started with unnecessary additions to an explorer app, a 'charging screen' that not only falsely claimed to charge your device faster, but was really just an advertisement screen when you plugged in your charger. Fortunately, after a storm of criticism and bad reviews, the charging screen has been removed. To come up with another trick recently: pop-up ads that also appear on your screen if you don't have ES File Explorer open. Also read: the best Android apps of October
Adware
With this kind of adware tactics, the developer of ES File Explorer (ES Global) clearly shows that it is untrustworthy. That is why we can already delete the paid variant as an alternative. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternative explorer apps for your Android left.
Solid Explorer 2.0
In terms of functionality and clear interface, Solid Explorer is perhaps the best alternative. The app is free to try for two weeks. After that you pay two euros for it once. Solid Explorer neatly integrates cloud services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can easily copy and move files between cloud storage and your Android. You can see exactly how much space you still have available everywhere and what the space hogs are. You can also go to all your photos, music or videos from the left panel in one fell swoop. This media can be played directly in Solid Explorer, even to your Chromecast.
FX File Explorer
The developers of FX File Explorer cleverly capitalize on the failure of ES File Explorer. For the offer price of two euros you can buy FX File Explorer, which you can also try for free for a week. Handy features include pairing two Androids via NFC to move files or web access to access files on your Android through another device's browser. You can add encryption and cloud support via add-ons.
Amaze File Manager
Just looking for a free explorer without adware? Then you have come to the right place at Amaze File Manager. The app is fast and well-arranged and has everything a good explorer needs on board. You can also create and extract zip archives and create bookmarks. However, Amaze is not as comprehensive as FX File Explorer and Solid Explorer 2.0.
Root Explorer
For advanced users, Root Explorer is a useful alternative. You just have to bite through the sour apple. The explorer can use your root access to get deep into the system, run scripts and modify xml files. However, without root access, the app is not the best choice. The free version contains advertisements, which you can buy off for € 3.79.
ZArchiver
Sure, ZArchiver is an explorer app, but that's not its primary purpose. ZArchiver is mainly intended for working with file containers, such as zip files, rar, 7z, img, iso and many others. You can move files in and out of these types of containers or create new containers.
Other
In addition to these four alternatives, the Play Store is packed with other explorer apps. For example, there is X-Plore, which is free, but looks very outdated. The same goes for Total Commander, which Windows users may remember. This app brings the dual explorer panel to Android, but unfortunately also the medieval look. Mixplorer is a good free alternative, but feels a bit unsafe because it needs to be installed outside of the Play Store.
