V - The File Viewer

I've used V for years now. I can't imagine having to use a PC without it. This program has undergone a long process of maturation and development, and it shows- there is capability and configurability in considerable depth, along with speed and a clean interface. The author is very responsive to user queries and welcomes input about potential new features.

While no one utility is going to be everyone's cup of tea, it's hard to see how V would not be a compelling choice for many. It deserves your evaluation.

I have used this program daily for about 10 years. The gridlines feature allows you to parse flat files that are not comma separated with titles for each field. Quick search and file handling features are a big plus for me, too.

Like the 3 comments below:
- I've been using V since DOS.
- It's always been very fast. Even with hot hardware these days, who can say that about their bloatware, I mean, software?!
- One example of speed: You can search for a character string across multiple files, or directories, have the files that contain the string pop up in a list, open each file, and find where the string was found in highlighted attributes...all within seconds!
- The price to value ratio not only beats out all other software, but may even beat out the price to value ratio of basic rice and beans, a staple food source for billions of people around the world.
- Now that Prineas has added a form of bookmarking/highlighting text, it'll be even easier to mark and copy text/data from a file.

As a professional developer for 3 decades, I find "V - The File Viewer" to be the best tool for viewing text files, binary files and archives (like zip and others). I have been using it daily for more than 10 years and it only gets better with time as Charles Prineas keeps enhancing it, keeping it modern and effective.

Here are just a few of the things I use V for:

- Analyzing huge log files from production environment and customers
- Browsing files inside archives like zip, rar, tar and gzip without opening the archives into a temporary directory like most other tools do.
- Quickly find patterns in text and binary files with the strong search capabilities of V (regular expressions, Unicode, binary and more)
- Very quickly navigate directories (much quicker than Windows Explorer)
- Editing text or binary files with integration with 3rd party tools like Notepad++ for text files and Frhed for binary files)
- View resources and source code inside Java JAR files (through integration with Jad to decompile .class files)
- View mainframe files encoded in EBCDIC
- Compare different sections of the same file side by side.
- Analyze character encoding issues in text files.
- Track log files as they are dynamically change (the Tail function).

There are many more good things to say about V but my character limit is approaching -- I highly recommend V!

V is the shell I use to manage networks and PC's, it's one of the best kept secrets of modern file management and viewing.

As a soon to retire network admin and security support operator, V needs to be at my fingertips to deliver solutions to users' without delay. I take the U3 version on a secured flash disk and this gives me the familiarity to solve problems and repair networks seamlessly. Like most I migrated from the legendary 'List' which viewed files in real mode, which V does effortlessly, but to me it does much much more, the ability to have a 'file spec' to filter directory reads, an associated editor [I use Notepad++] and recognise file systems in it's clean interface are the thing's I depend on to manage disks with V.

Charles, the Author of V is keen to hear from users' and include ideas they might have into it's design, that's partly why it is such a flexible application today - keep up the good work!

I have used V since back in the DOS (oh the memories!!) days and moved on to the Windows version over the years. Simply put, there is nothing like it for pure simplicity and *zero* bloat. As a programmer, I like my file viewer to be quick, simple and functional. V is that. And Charles is always no more than an email away if you have a question, need support etc and none of that has changed one bit. Sure there are many alternatives, but imo nothing beats V for pure functionality, accessibility and ease of use.