From the Dark Side
by Tiny Ruisch
My favorite Android file explorer was just updated. Solid Explorer is a great program that just got even better. Just like I haven’t used Windows Explorer for several years, I haven’t utilized the stock Android files program. For years, I used the free ES Explorer. When they junked up the interface with advertising, I shifted my allegiance and haven’t looked back.
Solid Explorer has all of the standard functions: Select All, Copy, Paste, Delete, Search, etc. One of the features that is most useful is dual panels, which makes it extremely easy to drag and drop. Although you can only see both windows in landscape mode, they are still active if your machine is using portrait mode. You simply have to swipe right or left. I usually keep my left window in my phone memory. I change the right window as needed to either my SD card or places on my network.
You can keep as many favorite places as you need. With one touch, I can browse any of my networked computers, my networked media storage, all of my mobile devices, etc. If you have any favorite folders on your network, you can also create an icon just for them. I don’t have to navigate all the folders to get to “my documents” on different machines. One touch and I am there.
Solid explorer also makes an excellent cloud manager. It supports Dropbox, One Drive, Own Drive, Google, Box and many others. You can also use FTP to remotely connect to your home computer(s).
The app also has built in file viewers for image and text files. Support for compressed file formats such as zip, rar and tar is also built in. You can either create or extract compressed files. It also duplicates another Microsoft Windows feature in that it indexes files. This make it able to do really fast searches.
The latest update has added a file encryption feature. You can encrypt either a single file, a whole folder or your entire phone. I can almost guarantee that if you use Solid Explorer’s encryption and the built in Android encrypt your phone option, the FBI won’t be able to see what is on your phone. Of course, they don’t seem to be the most efficient at that job anyway. Solid Explorer uses the AESS256 algorithm. If your device has a fingerprint sensor, you can encrypt without a password.
Now for the bad news, unlike most of the Android apps I review, Solid Explorer is not completely free. You can download the full version from the Google Play Store. When you do so, you can use all features for a two week trial period. After that, it costs $1.99 to unlock the app. I personally paid the unlocking fee about thirty minutes after I installed the program. Interestingly, as I write this review, the app has a 4.6 rating in the play store. The unlocker app (paid) has a 4.7 rating.
Thanks for reading.