WinDirStat

[TimoVJL]

https://windirstat.net/download.html

Nice tool to check folder sizes.

[John Z]

Yes it is very handy. I have used the portable version for many years.
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/windirstat_portable

Also a good site, and as the name implies portableapps can be installed on a USB and run leaving no traces, or very minimal, on the system.

However the most used tool now is SwiftSearch - the speed this has searching a NTFS formatted drive is just astounding.  Open source too.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/


John Z

[Vortex]

Another file search tool : Everything

Locate files and folders by name instantly.

https://www.voidtools.com/

[TimoVJL]

That Everything works fine and was updated recently.

[Vortex]

Hi Timo,

In Windows, we have the built-in command-line tool WHERE to search files.

[John Z]

the "where" command is ok but really very slow.

SwiftSearch found 5107 *.pdf files in just .22seconds

where didn't give the first page in .22 seconds. It was taking so long to finish that I Ctrl-C'd it.

The 'Everything' program looks interesting with some added features like a HTTP server. I wounder though if the Everything software 'phones home' or sends other telemetry without notification.  I'll install at some point and check.

John Z

[Vortex]

Hi John,

You can use Windows based firewall tools to inspect your network traffic.

[John Z]

Hi Vortex,

Yes, I use the firewall monitoring and the Resource monitor (resmon.exe) to see what the programs are doing.  I have about 15 outbound blocks added for programs that really don't need to send out information when I use the program. 


John Z

[Vortex]

I wounder though if the Everything software 'phones home' or sends other telemetry without notification.  I'll install at some point and check.

Kindly, could you share your inspection results with us?

[John Z]

Definitely can but it will be a little while yet.

John Z

[John Z]

Kindly, could you share your inspection results with us?

I download the .zip installation.  Unzipped into a directory. A single .exe
Started with no system network - didn't see any attempt to communicate.
Disabled the HTTPS servers feature. Enabled the system network and started it up again.
Nothing was seen in the firewall logs or in the resource monitor.

I let it index the main drive, it created a 33 mb db in the program directory.
The everything.db was not readable with sqlite - said it was not a db. HEXEDITOR
showed ESDb as the initial DB file bytes.

Searching was fast once the index was already created, which was fast too.

Everything seems to remain in the installation directory.  There is a user
editable .ini file.  The program interface for options seem to have most of the setting.

I disabled run in background - personal choice

Didn't see anything in appdata. Didn't try the HTTPS server feature.

So looks ok to me.

John Z

[Vortex]

Thanks. As I guessed, no any issues with that application.

[John Z]

Not open source though either like SwiftSearch is btw.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/

John Z