14 DAY TRIAL // I know IrfanView is not the best choice around and I don't want to think that there's no better free image viewer than XnView. Anyway, I'll stick with the first one because I am used to it and it saves me a lot of time, but that shouldn't stop me from trying new image viewers that I find from time to time.
Today's find is called ALSee, and its latest version is 4.12, the first Beta release. The installation package has 5.4MB in size and once you have the program all setup, there's nothing else to worry about, like a price, for example... Yes, this program is completely free, and there's nothing better than free software! Well, there is the good free software, and I hope today we have such a program here. These being said, it's time to move to the interface and features parts, so let's go now!
There are two components of this program - the viewer and the editor, both having basic features, but the thing I really like is that they can make you smile. Last week I had ALZip here, an archiver with some really funny toolbar icons, and all I need to say is that ALSee is developed by the same company and looks just as good as that. The rest of it can be seen clearly in the screenshots...but I am sure you won't stop there and get the program for a little image viewing.
The first thing to check now is the supported files list, and things look pretty good. ALSee can open for viewing over twenty image files and can save your retouches into BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX and TIF formats.
ALSee is not a picture manager, but I must be honest and tell you I don't even look for such a thing. Browsing for your pictures is very easy to do, and the feature that I really enjoyed here is something I have never seen before: this program can view two pictures at a time. The drawback is that pictures are automatically resized and you can't zoom in or out when using this viewing mode, but it can help you browse much faster large image collections and it doesn't take away the details the way it happens when using thumbnails.
Another feature that I enjoyed here is the batch renamer tool, and I hope to see a batch conversion feature available too in the future. The zoom factor can vary from a mere 7% to an incredible 5000% and the automatic resampling of pictures you view delivers excellent results with the price of speed, as it always happens, but I am always for quality.
The editor can be open using the Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut or the item from the menu with the same name, and there's nothing special about it, apart from the fact that I really enjoyed using it, so here's what you can find inside it: resize, rotate and levels adjustment, picture frames, text, some basic image effects and word balloons. Using all these features is as easy as breathing, and I hope I won't offend people with respiratory problems here...
The time has come to move to the conclusions now, but I feel like I have known this program for a lifetime. There's nothing hidden inside it, but I can only hope that you'll discover your own favorite features here, because you have enough available choices.
The Good
ALSee is the cutest image viewer I have seen so far, but that doesn't stop here. Its features are above average, the file support is good and using it is a pleasure.
The Bad
The only thing that stopped me from loving this program from top to bottom were those few times too many when the program stopped responding and I had to close it using the Task Manager. Of course, there are still some nice things to be added to the editor, and some speed improvements won't be bad either, but this is only a Beta version, after all...
The Truth
ALSee is an interesting choice, and I can only advise you to try it as soon as you find some spare time, I am sure you'll like it, but if you don't have the free moments for such experiments, don't forget and keep watching it and grab a future version. Until then, you can enjoy some of the screenshots here...
