All newer version of Windows comes with a built-in image viewer. For example Windows XP came with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, Windows Vista with Windows Photo Gallery and finally Windows 7 with Windows Photo Viewer. They are very useful because it has very basic features such as zooming, rotate and even playing slide show which are probably enough for basic computer user. All default image viewers in Windows can also open most common image formats such as JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF and PNG making most users don’t really need to install a third party image viewers.
One of my personal philosophy for computers are “less is better”. If you don’t need it, don’t install it. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. However after many years in fixing computer problems, I noticed many times that when I try to improve something that is working fine without problems, I will end up discovering a bigger problem and it would be even harder to fix. Today my recommendation to every Windows user is to use a third party image viewer and STOP USING the default image viewer provided by Microsoft. Reason is I recently found out that there is a private JPG exploit (selling as much as $4000) that when you double click on the JPG file and you can instantly get infected by malware turning your computer into a bot. This is either done by binding the malware into the JPG file or the JPG file is able to secretly download and run the malware. This updated JPG exploit is similar to MS04-028 but still unknown by Microsoft.
So now you know the danger of using the default image viewer provided by Microsoft. Using a third party image viewer and associating at least JPG extension lets you avoid being infected through this exploit. Another good thing about using a good third party image viewer is you get to do lossless rotation on JPEG photos. Here are a few reliable and popular image viewer that I recommend.
1. XnView (2.97MB)
What I like most about XnView is the tab and the shortcut key to close and switch between tab is the same as Firefox. Double clicking on the image from the XnView browser tab opens the image in a new tab and doesn’t fill up the screen in full. However, I noticed that XnView takes up a lot of memory usage, as much as 65MB to open up 8 JPG images in different tabs. Support about 400 graphic file formats and has the ability to adjust brightness and contrast, apply filters and effects but lack of editing features. Freeware for private non-commercial, educational use and non-profit organization.
2. IrfanView (1.32MB)
No tab support. Opened up 8 images at different window and took up a total of 55MB. The image viewer and the image browser (IrfanView Thumbnails) are 2 separate program. Can do JPG lossless rotation and support panorama creation. Has a paint dialog for basic image editing function. Has tons of features because of the plugin support. It’s fast, light, comes with a lot of features but I would personally prefer that the browser and viewer to be together with tab support. Free for non commercial usage.
3. FastStone Image Viewer (4.54MB)
No tab support and allows only one instances. Opening one image takes up 25MB. If you have dual monitor, you can display thumbnail browser on one and full screen preview on another monitor simultaneously. Comes with effects and filters, red eye removal, JPEG losless rotate, compare images and batch convert/rename. Free for home users.
4. Photoscape (16.5MB)
Doesn’t support tab. Each image is open at a new window. Felt a slow delay when opening an image. Opening 8 images on new editor window takes up 115MB. By default opening thumbnails in viewer tab shows full screen view but that can be disabled in options. Has basic image editing capabilities, batch editor, combine images, create animated GIF, image splitter and a very useful color picker.
My personal favorite for image viewer would be XnView (although IrfanView claims that XnView has been stealing/cloning features from them) mainly because of the tab support, the shortcut key that is the same as Firefox and also opens fast. By using third party image viewers, you get more control over viewing images and also avoid being a target of the JPEG exploit. I am sure there are a lot more third party image editor and if you’re using one that is not mentioned above, do share with us.
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