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Add to SafariWhen comparing ES File Explorer vs Instapaper, the Slant community recommends Instapaper for most people. In the question“What are the most useful Android phone apps?” Instapaper is ranked 17th while ES File Explorer is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Instapaper is:
Allows leaving notes attached to articles and highlighting certain part of the text. Free version of the app is limited to 5 highlights a month.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Supports SMB
ES File Explorer supports a local Samba connection to browse files on other area connected devices.
Pro Built-in ZIP and RAR support
ES File Explorer supports the .zip and .rar compression formats.
Pro Browse FTP
Pro Builtin audio player
Pro Cleaner
Cleaning cache, temp, junk files.
Pro Image viewer
Pro Inbuilt video player
Pro Root explorer
Explore root files if the phone is rooted.
Pro SFTP client
Access SFTP network shares.
Pro Encrypt files
Encrypt private or sensitive files and folders, set password.
Pro Can set custom ftp server folder location
Pro Builtin text editor with code highlight
Can set text encoding, find and replace, text highlighting for various programming and scripting language.
Pro Install plugins
For additional features.
Pro Share, send and receive files via WiFi
Like shareit.
Pro Create FTP server
Browse files from PC or mobile.
Pro Mediafire
Pro Box Cloud Integration
Pro Sugar Sync
Pro Amazon S3
Pro GoogleDrive file browse
Pro OneDrive file browse
Pro Dropbox file browse
Pro Recycle bin
Pro Download manager
Pro Space analyzer
Pro Integrates with a wide variety of services
The app supports Dropbox, Box.net, Sugarsync, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Amazon S3, Yandex and more.
Pro Annotation tools
Allows leaving notes attached to articles and highlighting certain part of the text. Free version of the app is limited to 5 highlights a month.
Pro Excellent typography choices
Instapaper allows you to choose from 14 different fonts, some of which have been designed specifically for the application. You can manually adjust spacing between lines, padding around text and font size to fit your preferences.
Pro Allows listening to articles
Instapaper comes with a build in text-to-speech feature that will read out loud articles. Premium version of the app allows creating playlists.
Pro Articles can be emailed to Instapaper
You can add articles to Instapaper by sending them to a unique email address associated with your account.
Pro Pagination
Allows for pagination, not just scrolling.
Pro Awesome offline mode
Pro Can look up words in a dictionary and Wikipedia
Pro Can be set to switch to dark mode based on time of day
Instapaper includes a dark theme and allows switching to it after a set period in time or gradually over the course of the day.
Pro Rarely seen organization options
In addition to allowing you to sort articles by when you saved them, you can also order articles by length or read progress and popularity.
Pro Free archiving of deleted webpages
In Pocket, this is a paid function - but Instapaper provides this for free! If a webpage is deleted, it remains in your Instapaper and they even archive pictures of the articles.
Pro Can playback inline video
Instapaper will play videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other sources that are embedded in articles, but you have to be online for playback to work.
Pro Has a font designed for readers with Dyslexia
Instapaper includes Dyslexie a font that helps people with reading problems understand the text better.
Pro Includes optional social features
If you set your Instapaper profile to be public, your friends will be able to see articles you've liked.
Cons
Con Network delete unreliable
Deleting files from network shares is not always reliable, especially when the file is first in the directory list.
Con Click fraud
Removed from Play store after being caught engaged in click fraud.
Con Ugly
Interface is kind of crappy.
Con Connects to an IP in China
For some reason ES File Explorer installs a folder called Baidu of which any app that installs this folder connects to an IP in China for some reason. Sadly it is still not known at this time for what or why.
Con Smart charger is enabled by default
It is annoying, after installing the app, suddenly you see your phone has changed.
Con News feature is enabled by default
Also it is not related to file browser.
Con ES Swipe is enabled by default
It is disturbing.
Con You have to install another app to add plugin/feature
Con Constant notifications
It is always running in the background and monitoring for possible issues. It always pops up with notifications about new files and suggested files for deletion. There is no way to turn it off.
Con Bought by another company and bundled with adware
Con Loads at start up and constantly runs in background
Takes up resources by always running. Performs monitoring you cannot turn off.
Con Changes features often
Features are changed very frequently, with most of the additions/changes being unnecessary.
Con Adds possible malware
This issue appears after the update of Aug, 1, 2016 ver 4.1.2.4.
Con Closed source (proprietary)
The source code for ES File Explorer is closed source.
Con Slow
Con Broken
Con Became a paid service again
Most functions, like search, became premium.
Con Basic search not free
Basic search for link title or website too is part of the premium.
Con Embedded images and videos are sometimes ignored
Instapaper sometimes saves articles without images or videos.
Con Only supports English
It only supports English, and not Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.
Con Tags not implemented
Con Search functions return random articles
The search function is very slow and does not provide accurate results. The user can not filter or reorder the search results, or search the archive or annotated articles.
