TCS - A Free “Do Almost Everything” Utility

A Free “Do Almost Everything” Utility

by Ira Wilsker
Golden Triangle PC Club
From the October 2002 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

A lot of us take digital photographs, and need an easy-to-use utility to edit those photos, or add special effects. While most digital cameras save their images in any of several popular formats, particular brands of digital cameras, such as some Casio’s, save their images in proprietary formats. Many of us enjoy listening to digital music in MP3 or other popular formats. We may use our computers at work, at home to watch or listen to streaming audio or video. Homemade or commercial digital video from CDs, DVDs, or online, in a variety of formats, is becoming more widely distributed, and often requires a viewer in order to play those formats on our computers. Sometimes we may wish to “capture” an image on our screens for any of many purposes. We may also wish to view faxes on our computers, without using any dedicated software. Nokia cell phone users, with optional data cables, may desire to view or edit Nokia formatted images. For those of you who may choose to receive our conventional processed film on Kodak CDs, a special viewer is typically required to view and edit our photos in Kodak’s proprietary format. Many others utilize the popular mail-order “Seattle Film Works” photo finishing service, and receive their film images in the proprietary Seattle format, which “requires” that their photo editor and viewer be used. I, along with millions of others, periodically use a scanner to digitize images; a universally capable scanner import utility would be very helpful. While there are many, often expensive, commercial software utilities that can perform one or a few of these functions, imagine how beneficial it would be if all of these functions, and more, were bundled into one, relatively small program, that is available online for free (free for non-commercial use)! For convenience, what if a single version can work well on any PC that is using any version of Windows from 95 to XP? There is a single program that can do all of that, and more. That program is IrfanView32.

IrfanView32 (pronounced “Ear Fan View”) is written by a young Bosnian programmer, Irfan Skiljan, in his home in Jajce, Bosnia, and is available from any of the major download sites, or direct from the publisher at www.irfanview.com. Version 3.75, dated July 2002, is about an 800k download, and is the latest version available. While listed as “free” for personal home, educational, charitable, or humanitarian use, a commercial or business license to use the product is only $10. Despite its extremely low cost, discounts are available from the $10 registration for multiple licenses. Once registered, currently stated plans are that updates and upgrades will be available for free. Compared to its competitors, Irfan is both top-rated, and a bargain. Obviously not a secret to computing aficionados, IrfanView32 has been the long running #1 program downloaded from the hundreds of Tucows download sites around the world. While lacking some of the “bells and whistles” of its far more expensive commercial competitors, such as Adobe PhotoShop (www.adobe.com, about $600 retail) or Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com, about $100 retail), Irfan is amazingly capable of common image editing, as well as manipulating, converting, or playing almost any image, audio, or video used throughout the world. Containing a simple email utility, Irfan can email images directly from the program, without first loading an email program. The author claims that Irfan was explicitly written to be international in scope, and universal in utilization. The Irfan website lists about 75 audio, video, and image formats supported, including both native PC and Mac formats. While the basic 800K download is very capable of viewing, editing, or playing most of the common image and sound formats, Irfan was designed with an open architecture. This allows for additional free “plug-ins” to be downloaded from the Irfan website, and other third parties, which enable the program to process many more media formats then the basic program does.

Many web surfers have stated their frustrations that arise when visiting websites that require the surfer to download large browser plug-ins in order to play animations such as “Flash”, or Apple’s QuickTime, view graphics in non-standard formats, or play streaming audio and video in such formats as “Real Player RAM”. Irfan makes that simple in that it can be used to play those formats, in some cases better and more efficiently then the other publishers’ freestanding software products. Irfan is also free of the spyware and cookies utilized by some web viewing or streaming software, which some privacy minded individuals find questionable.

If viewing or editing almost any known digital image format is needed, and if viewing or listening to almost any known audio or video format is desired, then IrfanView32 should be tried, and strongly considered. Whether used at home for free, or registered for a pittance, Irfan is a more than viable competitor to products many times its price, and should be seriously considered by all Windows users.

WARNING! Some versions of the very common KLEZ worm contain a dangerous payload (the WLKern32 virus) that is next scheduled to execute its “time bomb” on Friday, September 13, or Monday, September 16 (the 13th and 16th day of every odd-numbered month). If your computer is infected with this virus it may have deactivated any installed antivirus software. If “detonated” by an internally selected random number (as much as a one in eight chance), critical Windows system files and important data files on the hard drive may be destroyed, rendering the computer unusable. Since published reports indicate that as many as one in five PCs are infected with some form of KLEZ, I strongly suggest that all Windows users do a free online virus scan (requires Internet Explorer) at either housecall.antivirus.com or www.pandasoftware.com (click on “free virus scan”) as soon as possible. Other nefarious payloads are scheduled to execute on the sixth of each month. Protect your computer and its data!



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Tulsa Computer Society 10/02/2002
Don Singleton, President