Crazy Consumer Electronics World: Download of the day: IrfanView

Works on: PC, Mac (with additional software), Linux (with additional software)
Versions: Free
Ease of use: IrfanView loads in a flash and makes viewing images simplicity itself
Edit: There are a range of useful tools for editing images, whether you're a total novice or seasoned pro
Extend: Make your IrfanView experience even better with plugins

IrfanView is so simple to use but offers so much to users, you'll wonder why you ever used anything else to view images.

Why you need it

Don't be fooled by its basic appearance, IrfanView is one of the best image viewers on the planet. The super-lightweight program loads up instantly and makes image viewing an absolute cinch thanks to a huge range of features and powerful options.

For starters, it can open and save almost 120 different image file extensions and around 15 audio/video formats. It's extremely easy to use and user new and old will feel well at home when using it. The simplest tasks are quick to access with well thought out hotkeys, while more advanced users will find its more sophisticated tools easy to find and simple to get to grips with.

And if you want a little more from it, it has a number of powerful image manipulation features at its disposal. There's the paint tool, allowing you to draw lines, circles, arrows and more on your images, while it's also got batch conversion, scanning and text editing tools, plus a range of effects such as blur, sharpen, filters and more. If all that's not enough for you, you can also download IrfanView plugins to extend it even further.