Y-Browser took language classes, FileHide fails at hiding files

Y-Browser

Symbian file manager Y-Browser doesn't hide the system folders of your phone, so if you've set your phone free you can open those folders and modify their contents. And you can add plugins to Y-Browser to make it display text files, handle ZIP files, and more.

The latest update to Y-Browser makes it speak azerbaijani, catalan, and farsi, and its italian and slovenian language skills are improved. Of course Y-Browser also works in english. It currently supports 37 languages.

Y-Browser comes in two versions: signed and unsigned. Both versions are free, but you'll have to run the unsigned version through the Symbian Signed bureaucracy before you can install it on your phone, or sign it with your own certificate, or hack your phone to set it free from the claws of Symbian Signed. The signed version is bundled with adtronic, an intrusive piece of adware that pollutes your phone with advertisements (even when Y-Browser is not running!), so better get the unsigned version. Signing the program or hacking your phone takes a bit of extra work, but allowing adtronic to infect your phone is much, much, much worse.

• Y-Browser

ActiveFile and X-plore do wat Y-Browser does, and more. And you don't need to install plugins to make 'em do it.


FileHide

Most file managers for Symbian have an option to hide files, but you usually have to dig quite deep into the user interface to do so.

FileHide hides your files, and it does nothing else. This could make hiding files a lot easier than having to dig down several layers of menus and other distractions in multi-purpose programs. With FileHide you just have to select the file and hit "Go" to hide or unhide it. You can set a password too, so that other people cannot hide or unhide your files with FileHide when they catch hold of your phone.

Well, in theory that's how FileHide works. In real life things are different, which makes FileHide useless on most modern Symbian phones/

FileHide doesn't encrypt your files, it only hides them from Symbian's built-in file manager. Programs like X-plore and ActiveFile can see and unhide files hidden by FileHide, even if you've set a password in FileHide.

And because FileHide is a mobile Java program instead of a native Symbian application, your phone will pop up numerous security warnings. The many security warnings that you need to click away when using FileHide negate the advantage of the uncluttered interface. The total number of key presses required to hide or unhide a file with FileHide is larger than for real Symbian file managers, which totally defeats the purpose of FileHide.

• FileHide from zimbleTech
• FileHide at GetJar