ExpanDrive: transparent remote file access

Too late to mention?

$ sudo defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

As a small web-business owner, I can immediately appreciate the time savings this app will generate, and I plan to buy several licenses. Regarding the fact that similar things exist, that may be true, but I've not used any that worked as well and as fast with close to zero configuration. If this application saves my business an hour it'll be worth the number of licenses I plan to buy. If I were a casual user it might be overpriced, but as a an all-day every-day FTP user, this is going to save me many headaches.

MacFusion's user interface is just as good. In fact, it might even be better. And MacFusion includes FTP.
However, the fundamental problem with MacFusion is due to the underlying sshfs implementation. If you have used sshfs, either from the command line or through MacFusion, you have probably experienced spinning beach balls and other headaches. On a laptop with intermittent connectivity it happens all the time. Often enough that it totally undercuts the usability.
Yes, it's great that there is a free implementation, and if you only need to browse a remote file hierarchy or edit a file occasionally, you might find it adequate. But this is really in another league.

Jeff,

I wouldn't worry too much about the bitching re: you stealing. This happens every time someone makes a commercial app that improves upon or creates a usable interface for something that is open source.

The licenses for those projects allows you to create something like you have done. Giving credit where its due is nice but I'm more than happy to let you do that in your own time.

I noticed the logo similarity as well. But its pretty hard to copyright a u shaped magnet. I mean seriously. The shape of yours is even significantly different.

You people are all freaks with too much time on your hands.

Really nice App guys! So much less buggy the SSHFS... OMG. TO bad it cost so much... I'm not a fan of buying software!!! But you all have to eat...

I'll use it until the demo expires. If there was an app I would love it would be this, because I like working on my web projects from the server, this would seem convenient...

Unsion better sue these people for stealing their application logo.

An amazing application. I have never seen anything like this. It just killed Transmit in my eyes and I love the fact that I can now preview images on my server. This just made my life a whole lot easier. I wish I would have known about this kind of technology before. Thanks for the review!

ExpanDrive has a completely different core than SSHFS . We've got real aggressive internal caching [with SQLite, no less] and have spent a lot of time making sure we keep a robust connection across access points, sleeps, etc. MacFusion is nice, but is merely a GUI atop SSHFS.

The disconnected operation is something you won't find with sshfs. Apparently they also do some caching that you won't find in sshfs. (MacFusion is just a front end to sshfs and other free MacFUSE filesystems.)

So this is better than sshfs. I don't know about $29 better, but it is better.

... and they've almost stolen Unison's icon and flipped it 180...