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Every time I get to setup an operating system on a computer, even before installing any drivers, my first concern is to get a good file manager. The only reason is that I hate wasting time, when I can find a way to avoid this. Today's file manager comes from a company called Softrage, and its name is RageWorks.


Setup
Available for more operating systems, RageWorks is a program built using Java, and its latest version is 2.9c, released on the 4th of May. To use it on the Windows platform, all you have to do is download the ZIP package with the files, unpack its content to a folder on your drive and run the RageWork.exe executable. Accept the license agreement, face the nag screen you see to the left here, press the OK button, and your 15 days trial can start!


Interface

If you have used Norton Commander or any other similar file manager, then RageWork should look familiar. Even better, its interface is highly customizable, allowing you to use skins and change most display options as you wish. If you miss Windows Explorer, you can even switch the dual-panel display to a single-panel one, but I see no need for such a thing. The only little issue here is that you'll have to restart the program each time you change the display settings for the changes to have effect.


Features
Obviously, the main weapon of this program is its powerful file explorer with filter view, quick search and speed limiting capabilities, but things look even better once you get to spend enough time with it. Once you have RageWork on your computer, you can forget about your archivers, because this program can work with ZIP, TAR, TGZ, BZIP and GZIP file formats.

When you hold your mouse above a picture file, for example, the program shows a thumbnail with its preview, but this is only a small thing. Think about built in FTP support, the ability to create and use virtual folders and many more goodies! Since you have 15 days available to discover them, I'll move on a step further and draw the conclusions...


The Good

RageWork has all the file management features most computer users need, and is also highly customizable. Using it may prove a bit difficult for beginners, but once you get to master it, you won't ever return to use Windows Explorer!

The Bad

Being a Java application, RageWork inherits the problems found with all such programs - I found it to be pretty slow and quite a memory hog (100MB seems way too much for a file manager, even if your computer has 1GB of memory or more!).

Conclusion

Total Commander has pretty good competition, and that's good for us, the users. While I think that RageWork is too expensive, I advise you to give it a try... but only if you are not using a serious file manager yet!

Developer: Softrage
Price: 34$
Trial Link: Download