FileViewerX

Although there are numerous graphic viewers out there that promise to satisfy every whim when it comes to displaying pictures, you might be interested in a simple solution, namely a program whose sole purpose is to show images, without any fancy features that are likely to have bigger impact on PC resources usage.

Such a tool is FileViewerX. Designed with a clear goal in mind, this application can read graphic files with the BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIF and TIFF format, as well as play slideshows in a basic manner.

Following a speedy installation that shouldn't give you any trouble, you're greeted by a plain window with instructions on how the program works. It's possible to either drag and drop pictures from the file manager over this window, or to manually change file associations. Unlike other graphic viewers, this one doesn't have an integrated popup file browser.

By default, only BMP and JPG photos can be opened with this tool. When attempting to open files with any other format, FileViewerX displays an error in a log window. However, you can extend its filetype by pressing "F2". This command shows a small window with options for activating and deactivating support for BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIF and TIFF.

The option to disable support for certain filetypes may seem redundant. However, it helps if you wish to play slideshows using only specific image formats while ignoring others. This is because, when opening a picture, the application autodetects all supported file types from its folder, preparing them for the slideshow. To play it, you just have to click the "A" button.

The default time for each on-screen slide is set to 3 seconds and can be changed to any number of seconds. FileViewerX doesn't have an option for replaying slideshows though, displaying an log message at the end of the show.

To replay, it's necessary to navigate to the first position by yourself. Fullscreen mode can be quickly enabled and disabled with right-click. Also, you can set the interface language from English to German.

Unsurprisingly, the tool used minimum resources in our tests. It may not have a particularly attractive interface or an elaborate set of features, but FastImageViewer offers a straightforward solution for viewing images and playing slideshows.