Freeware Friday: Irfanview Image Viewer

Irfanview is not new, but it has been continually improving as long as Irfan Skiljan has been working on it. If you haven’t seen the latest version, it’s time to take another look.

Irfanview
Windows 98/NT/2k/Me/XP/95/2003
Freeware for non-commerical, educational, or charitable or humanitarian organizational use
Registration fee is €10 for commercial use
Dontations in any amount for continued development gratefully accepted

Speed and Versatility

Irfanview is fast. Irfanview is versatile: it views a multitude of file formats. Irfanview edits photos. Irfanview is a media player. Irfanview walks the dog, does the dishes and doesn’t leave the toilet seat up. OK, I lied about the last three, but it does so much already maybe dishes will be next.

Features

The list of features of this amazing little program is long, and includes things like creating slideshows from images and saving them as executable .exe or screensaver .scr files, previews folders of images as thumbnails, and supports Photoshop plugins. Irfanview makes web galleries, contact sheets, and converts bitmap graphics to Windows .ico format in a blink. It not only lets you save icon files, but it extracts .ico files from .dll, .exe, or .icl (Icon Library) files.

You can use it to batch scan, email photos, print, play multimedia files, and edit your photos with advanced features like lossless jpg rotation. It even takes screen captures!

Irfanview installs Google Desktop Search Toolbar, so if you do not want it installed make sure you click the appropriate button on the install screen when asked.

Although commercial users need to register Irfanview, there are no nag screens and the program is fully functional without registration; but I encourage you to support the work of this author and register, even if you do not use the program professionally.

Download Irfanview
Irfanview Forums in German and English