Krusader plus fluxbox (or another lightweight wm) gives you the integration and click-to-run features of KDE without the bloat. It rocks.

I use mc for "pure" file management, and anything that needs to be done as root, but if I'm dealing with any kind of data files I go with krusader.

The krename integration rocks as well.

Konqueror

This baby needs to be better known. Linux, OS/2, Win32, and other platforms. Works as a mail client, web server, ftp server/client. Approx 1.3mb in size. Works in a terminal or in an X-window. More features than you can shake a stick at. It is great to be able to move between so many different platforms and have such a fundamental tool working the same way on each.

If it was on the list, it would get my vote. I can't vote for any of the others. Please include it next year - it is offering something different from the others.

http://filemanager.free.fr

Nautilus for normal use and MidNight for heavy work !

I'm surprised XFFM isn't included. It comes with XFCE (even though many people seem to prefer rox), and it's the first graphical file manager I occassionaly find myself using.

While it probably started as a joke here, I would really like to vote 'command line'. I still do most of my file managing through ls, cp, mv, find, rm and such, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this.

Konqueror!

Xandros File Manager

Nautilus

I voted for Knoqueror. It's so nicely integrated with KDE.

Jeremy

ls, cd should have been the way to go

Konqueror... it really has improved a lot, a lot... I think it is not very good for web browsing though... too much buttons and some weird behaviour.

I voted for Xfe because I'll use that no matter what wm/de I'm in; though I like Nautilus, Konqueror, and Krusader because of their support of sftp.

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I start to use xfce again (hadn't in a couple of years) shortly after 4.2 was released. What an improvement! Faster than ever and even more configurable. Great session management as well. A few days ago I noticed a new version of Enlightenment had been released and had to give that a spin as well. I haven't used it in about three years and am pleasantly surprised playing with it for now. I keep switching wm's, sometimes swinging between mousy and keyboard tools (ratpoison and enlgihtenment??? ;-) ). I'm such a WM slut... <sigh>. Hey that's one of the tings that makes Linux great: CHOICE!! Have it YOUR way!

...but the file manager is slooow. opening konqueror is faster than opening xffm... even when in xfce. nautilus and rox are faster (and use the same icons), nautilus and konqeror support sftp (and open faster), so i don't use xffm. it might have great features, but it's not nearly as smooth to work in as others.

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I think all of them (nautilus???????????? <ugggghhhh>) are way to slow. I prefered xfce's original file manager xftree. meanwhile I now use either emelfm2 or midnight commander. Both open almost instantly. Your original point is well taken: xffm is quite slow, though I don't find it significantly slower than konqueror and I doubt it's slower than nautilus which I've found to be a record setter (although its not too bad run with the --nodesktop option)