(Modified 2012 Dec 03)
Thunar
XFCE file manager
Thunar slowness
Starting around XFCE 4.8, Thunar on startup would take tens of seconds to load. The slowness apparently is due to automounting the network. The fix, found on Launchpad.net is:
cd /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/
as root, back up network.mount
edit as root network.mount
change AutoMount to false
You'll need to re-do this when you upgrade.
Other file managers
Another nice XFCE file manager is PCManFM. It supports tabs, but the tree view isn't present in all current versions.
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