Graphics viewing must have - Irfanview

When any discussion of freeware starts I invariably find myself mentioning Irfanview.
It is sort of one of the all time classics of freeware that stands the test of time in pretty much every facet of freeware.
Many simply label it as graphics viewer, but that really really doesn't accurately begin to describe it.

The author of Irfanview states this rather encompassing description of it, "IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way, unlike some other graphic viewers, whose whole "creativity" is based on feature cloning, stealing of ideas and whole dialogs from ACDSee and/or IrfanView! (for example: XnView has been stealing/cloning features and whole dialogs from IrfanView, for 7+ years).

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support.
One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support.
The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.


Some IrfanView features:
* Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats)
* Multi language support
* Thumbnail/preview option
* Toolbar skins option
* Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
* Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
* Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
* Fast directory view (moving through directory)
* Batch conversion (with image processing)
* Multipage TIF editing
* File search
* Email option
* Multimedia player
* Print option
* Change color depth
* Scan (batch scan) support
* Cut/crop
* IPTC editing
* Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
* Capturing
* Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
* Lossless JPG rotation
* Many hotkeys
* Many command line options
* Many PlugIns
* Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired"
* No registry changes without user action/permission!
and much much more"
It now allows skinning of it's toolbar (as linked to in the preceding), which though such isn't necessarily a reflection of the functionality of it per se, it just adds yet another oomph to the overall package that Irfanview is.
Irfanview has been around and been developed since 1996, it is almost an anomoly to have a piece of freeware be around for that length of time and continue to grow and be outstanding.
One semi caveat is now during installation the option is given to install the Google Desktop Search, which for some is a great thing, to others a bane. It is your call/option. In further postings I shall list what I myself prefer as far as freeware hard drive and/or desktop search tools.

Interested in downloading the latest version of Irfanview (version 4.0)?
It can be freely obtained via my box.net account here.
Note : Disable any download managers when d/l'ing files from box.net :)