XnView 1.90 Alpha (Early test version)

[masu]

you can download and test the newest alpha version here.
There a lot of improvements 

http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=7397

[mouser]

excellent, i keep going back and forth between irfanview and xnview; time to try xnview again.

[masu]

me, too

besides this 2 I also use Picasa. It's an excellent Organizer. But for Browsing I use XNView

[elpresi]

Just when I thought I had tried all the major viewers, I just recently run into this truly excellent viewer: ExifPro
http://www.exifpro.com/
It is nagware, you have to register to remove the welcome screen, but otherwise 100% functional and great, great full screen viewer.

I'll agree that XNview is a good viewer, although I am not too fond of its interface. I prefer the slower FaststoneViewer. Another free viewer that deserves mention is cPicture.

For organizing / tagging / viewing I also use Picasa. :-)

[TucknDar]

tried XnView several times, but I've stuck with Irfanview. Something about the simplicity of the default view, I think. The default view of Xnview doesn't really do it any favours, methinks. It can obviously be changed, but there's still a lot of things that counts in Irfanview's favour for me. Xnview does seem a little more powerful, though, so I'll definitely keep an eye on it and continue playing with it, but I need to be convinced, I suppose...

[JavaJones]

Irfanview always seemed very clunky to me. Frankly I never understood why anyone stuck with it after they found XnView. They're so close in major features (support of 100's of file formats being their major selling point) that I always figured the one that was "obviously better" would win. I guess "obviously better" is subjective though, since a lot of people seem to still dig Irfanview.

XnView and Irfanview are both great, powerful apps really. But I find XnView more intuitive and pleasant to use by far, and it also seems to develop faster. Better still I am constantly discovering cool new features it has, similar to all the stuff I keep finding in PSPad, my favorite text editor. They're both like the swiss army knives for their respective media formats - text and images. From batch processing and renaming to online gallery creation and tabbed image viewing, I think XnView stands above many others. Fortunately there are lots of options for those who disagree.

Anyway I'll wait until this goes final, but I'm curious what has changed. I see the list of features, but it's too long and mind-numbing to really pick out what's significant. Can anyone who has tried this new version point out anything significant they noticed?

- Oshyan

[zridling]

Nice find with ExifPro, elpresi, and only $20! I've been switching between XnView and the new ACDSee 9 beta, which is amazingly fast. For viewing, sorting, deleting, XnView does it well. I also use FastStone's MaxView for opening files and displaying them very quickly.

[nudone]

like yourself, Zane, i find acdsee a bit too much when you just want quick peeks at image files but i never really got on with 'irfanview'. i'll try 'maxview' for a while and see if that agrees with me more. thanks for mentioning it.

are there any 'major' improvements/changes with the new acdsee 9 beta? i've not seen it yet.

[TucknDar]

Irfanview always seemed very clunky to me.
[...]
I am constantly discovering cool new features it has, similar to all the stuff I keep finding in PSPad, my favorite text editor.

For "clunkiness" I've always thought it the other way around, that XnView was the more clunky thing, but it might just be because I'm so used to the simple Irfanview interface I've set up that the default one in Xnview didn't please me.
About cool new features, I also love that in apps! PsPad is my favourite editor too I'll definitely give Xnview a run for the money this time.

[masu]

the new xnview 1.9 ist definately faster than previous versions!!
Give it a try.
IMO it's as fast as ACDSee

[nudone]

just wanted to report back that 'maxview' is something you really should try.

it's not for thumbnail browsing but the features it packs for single image viewing are perfect.

i'm, sort of, using it with several instances of the program at a time - each one previewing a different image in a neat frameless window (irrelevant information perhaps). the point i'm trying to make is that it opens up a different way of working to that of the usual file browser method - there is quick access to menus that contain most of the features you could expect from such an app.

(truth is, you could use 'irfanview' in a similar way, or even just xnview or whatever, but 'maxview' just seems a bit more polished in it's appearance - if you tinker with it a little.)

[zridling]

Exactly. Set up MaxView the way you want, and when you need to see an instant full screen or larger view of an image without delay, BAM! it's there. Navigation is also pretty nifty. It finally weaned me off of VuePrint, which I used for many years, but it no longer actively developed. I like XnView for viewing large folders of images — like >800 — because that seems its main purpose.

Nudone, I can't wait for a review of ACDSee 9 when it comes out. I can't believe they have achieved that level of speed throughout the program.