ImageViewer

Probably the first thing you do when transferring pictures from your camera is to browse through them. Windows already provides a default utility to serve in this regard, which only requires a double-click on the picture. In case you’re looking for something to replace the default tool, maybe ImageViewer is what you need.

The application was built on the Java Runtime Environment platform so you need to make sure it is installed on the computer you decide to use it on. On the other hand, the application itself requires no installation, and can be easily carried around on a USB flash drive, while using it doesn’t affect the target PC’s health status, because registries are not a dependency.

An empty space covers most of your screen when running the application. What’s more, you need to rely on the built-in browse dialog to select the files you want to view, because dragging them over the main window has no effect. Moreover, it can’t be set as your default viewer, which means you always have to go through the executable.

ImageViewer only supports JPG, PNG, and GIF files, but GIFs are not animated. The loading part can be a little confusing, since you can’t target an entire folder, even though you can later on scroll through the entire content, which means you only need to select a single file from the source folder.

The set of feature leaves a lot to be desired. Navigation options make sure you can get to the next and previous image with little effort, or jump directly to the start or end of the collection. You can also enter a full screen view, but there’s no built-in zoom option, possibility to rotate, or set the current picture as your wallpaper.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that ImageViewer comes equipped with a poor set of features, and can’t even compete with the default tool Windows puts at your disposal. Sure enough, it’s portable, but with no option to access files faster, and only navigation buttons without a zoom function, you’re tempted to look for alternatives.