When it comes to multimedia, nothing has suffered since the beginning of the Computer Era more than images that need viewing. There are so many programs for image viewing, so it's incredibly hard to find ones that are actually good. And XnView is one of those.
The little program does exactly what the developer promises: allows you to view and browse your image gallery. Unlike many other overly large and complicated applications, XnView keeps it simple. You open it, you open your images, and you do what you need. It's almost primitive, but not inconvenient enough to be considered so.
Every image viewer now has to have a browsing option. And XnView does have it, but unlike standard tools in your OS or lazily put together alternatives, it allows you to browse and view files of various formats together without distorting their original format. For example, you can watch GIF animation right there next to a JPEG still image. This makes the editing part of XnView a lot easier. You can resize, rotate, adjust brightness and color, compare images, apply some basic filters, etc. Nothing special, but handy to have when you view images.
Of course, you can also create slideshows, do a little web-design, and so on. It's quite easy, but sometimes the interface gets in the way. Too many sub-menus can make work tedious.
Overall, a rather useful and handy program allowing you to work with your image files and not bothering you in any other way. Probably a must-have for all casual users.
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