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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

Well considering that Android doesn't include a respectable file-browser built-in and so you have to do that through apps, that functionally means user access too.

No, you can't see your file system. Not yours.

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Not meaning to voice disagreement or anything, but do you have an example of a decent file browser?

Not OP but I like ES File Explorer. It perhaps follows a desktop FM form to closely, but works for me when I need to navigate the Android file system.

Edit: There's a load of suggestions downthread, I think I might be on an older version of ES, maybe pihole is blocking some of the ads others are complaining of.

Es was the best for awhile, but it's bloated and has ads now. I switched to Solid Explorer and it works great for me, nice UI and pretty quick. No complaints so far.

The Asus ZenUI one is pretty good, I use that.

Amaze File Manager does quite well, is free software [1] and can be installed from both F-Droid as well as the Play Store.

[1] https://github.com/TeamAmaze/AmazeFileManager

That seems pretty reasonable to me honestly given the whole mindset behind Android. Why would the average user even care about exploring the filesystem? And if you're a poweruser who really wants to have low level access then you can just root your device and run whatever you want on it.

Regardless of whether you think it's good or bad design, at least it's consistent IMO.

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