When comparing Irfanview vs ImageGlass, the Slant community recommends Irfanview for most people. In the question“What are the best image viewers for Windows?” Irfanview is ranked 2nd while ImageGlass is ranked 4th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Some editing tools included (cropping, color correcting, etc...)
Pro Lots of plugins available
Plugins can be found here.
Pro Batch processing
Even exif information can be batch processed.
Pro Recognizes virtually any image format
Pro You can just scroll with your mouse to explore images
Pro Ultra fast
If you press and hold the right-arrow button (for displaying the next image), you can watch images pass by as if they are a video, it's that fast. No stuttering, it loads images as fast as your hard drive can keep up.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Can use 8bf (Photoshop) filters
Pro Easy updates
Very easy to update the program and its associated plugins.
Pro Irfanview Thumbnail Viewer is a convenient way to view all image files easily
Irfanview Thumbnail Viewer is a great way to view thumbnails of all image files, including thumbnails of WMF files which Windows cannot natively display.
Pro Open source
As long as you have enough skill you can mold it to your liking.
Pro It handles animated GIF files really well
Animated GIF files (let it be transparent or regular) are played seamlessly even if you zoom in and out.
Pro Portable version available
If you don't want to or you can't install ImageGlass, you can go with the portable.
Pro Good looking
Cons
Con GIF viewing is buggy
GIF viewing has longstanding problems like flickering, incorrect framerate or artifacts, and it is very unlikely that it will be ever fixed.
Con Irfanview Thumbnail Viewer crashes on accessing AVI files
For some reason, the Irfanview Thumbnail Viewer crashes when it tries to access any .AVI movie file.
Con No transparency support
The alpha is converted to the selected background color upon opening a picture. When saving the picture again, you can select a color which is converted to alpha again.
Con Missing some utilities
Like browsing files utility.
Con Preferences are hard to find
Con Windows only
Con UI is far from ideal
Sometimes the interface is confusing.
Con Does not support APNG
It does not support the Animated Portable Network Graphic (APNG) format yet. And it is a con worth considering.
Con No editing options
The program lacks any kind of image manipulation or batch processing features like Irfanview or XnView has. If you're an advanced user, this will be the biggest con against this software.
Con Color picker doesn't have an X [close]
And can only be closed with the menu options or by ctrl+shift+k.