The jump to version 2 of the web browser backup software brings support for Opera 10 and Flock 2.5 (next to the already existing support for Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 2.9 to Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 1 to Google Chrome 4, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Flock 3). This should cover the most used web browsers in the Windows operating system.

One of the great additions in FavBackup 2 is support for portable web browsers. It is now possible to select a custom location for the user profile for Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and Flock. It is furthermore possible to select any of the identified profiles of the supported web browsers directly.

Other changes in this release are the new ribbon interface, a progress bar, different themes for the backup program, 40% less computer memory usage and minor bug fixes. The new additions make FavBackup 2 a recommended program for web browser backups, especially if multiple different web browsers are installed and used in a computing environment.

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The interface of the computer program has been divided into three areas. The header area containing menus and the breadcrumb navigation, the left sidebar that contains a list of all local and network drives including their folders and the main area that displays the files and folders that are located in the current directory level.

Some might say that this does not sound exciting enough to give it a try. Snowbird comes with an advanced feature set that might entice some users to give it a try though.

The Windows Explorer alternative offers a search form right in the interface which can search for files, folders and even file contents. It is furthermore possible to navigate with mouse gestures which can speed up folder navigation quite a bit.

The overall speed of Snowbird is fast, faster than that of Windows Explorer especially when navigating in network shares and large local folders. There is however one aspect that is not well designed. The only way to copy or move files is to mark them, right-click and select the appropriate option from the menu. In other words: Drag and drop is not supported.

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One of the reasons you should take a moment to get to know this tool is that it is quite different from Explorer. Although fundamentally you tackle the same tasks with both tools there are enough differences to confuse the new user. To this end, let’s examine the ins and outs of the Nautilus file manager.

Layout

Nautilus Main Window

Unlike Explorer (and many other File Managers), Nautilus is a single-pane file manager. You can not change the view to split-pane mode or dual-pane mode. You get what you get…a single window showing you files and directories.

As you can see (in the image to the right) the Nautilus interface is very clean and simple. But your first thought might be, “How do I drag and drop a file into another directory?” We’ll get to that in a moment.

Each time you double click on a directory a new window will open to that directory. You will then have two windows open. This makes dragging and dropping simple. Careful though, the default drag and drop action is not to copy but to move. So if you plan on copying a file from one window to the next you will have to right click the file (or directory) and select “Copy”. To paste the file (or directory) you will go to the target directory and either click Edit and then click Paste or right click within the directory and select “Paste”.

Nautilus List View

You can also switch from Icon or List view. In the image above you can see Nautilus in Icon mode. The image to the left shows Nautilus in List View mode. As you can see each directory can be expanded to reveal its contents.

But what about navigating directories? Normally, in Linux, you would scroll to the top of a directory and see an entry that was either “..” or “./” and you knew you could click (or double click) on this to navigate up one directory. In Nautilus you won’t see this. Instead you will notice, in the bottom left corner, an dropdown that shows your current working directory. If you click that dropdown it will reveal all directories above the current working directory.The Image below and to the right shows this dropdown in action.

Directory Dropdown

As you can see the gHacks directory is found in the /home/jlwallen/Pictures directory. You can open a new Nautilus window in any one of these directories by selecting the target from the dropdown.

Another way of quick navigation is the Places menu. If you click on that menu you will see a number of various directories. You can also add bookmarks to this menu by selecting the Add Bookmark entry from within the current working directory.

The Bookmarks Menu

The nice thing about adding bookmarks is that they are then added to the Bookmark submenu in the Places menu on the GNOME Panel.

You can also edit your bookmarks by selecting Edit Bookmarks from within the “Places” Nautilus menu.

Configurations

And of course there are plenty of configurations to undertake with Nautilus.

If you click the Edit menu you will see the Preferences entry. Click that to open the Preferences window where you will see six tabs: View, Behavior, Display, List Columns, Preview, and Media. One of the more important tabs is the Media tab. This is where you configure which applications will open different types of files.

Final Thoughts

The Nautilus file manager is an outstanding tool to manage your files and directories. Once you get used to the differences between this tool and your previous file manager, you will come to find Nautilus to be one outstanding utility.

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Both features are disabled by default and the user has to check the corresponding boxes to activate them. The changes become visible immediately in Windows Explorer. The checkboxes will be visible in every view mode available while highlighting the rows will only have a (visible) effect in Details view.

The Tray Prodder interface comes with additional buttons that can be used to select, check or clear the current items in Windows Explorer.

Users who have to work with Windows Explorer regularly might like Tray Prodder. Everyone else will probably not see a reason to have it running in the background all the time as it uses about 10 Megabytes of computer memory while running in the system tray.

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The interface itself has been streamlined for ease of use. Each of the three options can be configured in their own tabs by checking or unchecking checkboxes. All of the 27 new functions are added by default after installation. They range from deleting locked files over displaying information about the size of folders to synchronizing directories. Most users will probably stick with a basic set of functions and disable the ones that they do not need. Another option would be to add all functions to a submenu for a better overview.

The commands of other applications that show up when a file or folder is right-clicked that is triggering the event are shown as well. They are divided into submenus like Drives, Folders or Printers. A click on an entry will display the context menu entries that have been added by third party applications.

Each entry can be removed to optimize the menus.

File Menu Tools provide access to separators and folders that can be added to further optimize the display of the context menu entries. It is furthermore possible to move the entries around.

File Menu Tools provide an easy way to configure and optimize the Windnows Explorer context menu entries.

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The first noticeable aspect about Explorer++ is that it is a fully portable application, it can be executed from anywhere. The memory footprint is acceptable with roughly 6 Megabytes of computer memory and 3 Megabytes of virtual memory.

Explorer++ supports tabbed browsing making use of the same keyboard shortcuts that Firefox uses. CTRL T opens a new tab which effectively means that only one explorer window has to be opened all the time for all file and folder operations.

Tabs can be bookmarked for future access which is another much needed feature for every Windows Explorer replacement.

It supports filters and splitting and merging of files. As I said before it is no match for the heavy weight Total Commander like applications which support so many features that it is hard to keep an overview.

It would have been nice if you could divide the main explorer window into two panes which would both show the contents of a folder or drive. That would make file operations much easier in my opinion. One has to consider that Explorer++ was released as alpha and that the software developer will surely add functionality to his software program, we just have to wait a bit longer.

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