Image viewers that support password protection

[webfork]

Background

I'm happy to say there are more and more tools with transparent security, meaning you can attach a good password to basically anything now. Office documents and PDF files are drastically more secure than what was available 10 years ago. And now, from what I'm seeing, lots of image programs have this feature and it's seamless.

There's really no reason to worry about sharing all your family photos with JUST your family. And not wonder if you've got the complicated privacy controls setup right or whether there will be weird-creepy facial recognition software attached to it.

This situation owes a lot to the interest in comics viewers over time, a group that naturally wants the highest quality, smallest, and best images all stored in one file. The password protection was just a ride-along, but I'm glad to have it.

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Program listing

Viewer programs

All of the following support password-protected 7zip files. I mention it because the archives are generally smaller and more secure (standard ZIP passwords are very breakable). I didn't come close to checking all the image viewers here on the site, but here's a few tools that worked great:

• Gonvisor - Really solid but not portable - allows saving the file password. (My favorite so far.)
• Honeyview - Thumbnail view is available but low-quality and inside the the load screen.
• ComicsViewer - only works with ZIP and RAR files but includes a password list. Does have a thumbnail view via "Toggle File List" in the toolbar.
• Pixx - No thumbnail view, no subfolders and no longer in development.
• ACBR - active development, no support for subfolders

Side note: Pixx appears to extract files on the fly, whereas Gonvisor saves all files to a temporary folder, which seems to work faster but might be a privacy concern.


Creator programs

Really any "zip" or "7zip" program that supports passwords. I like 7zip and Peazip because (as mentioned above) they support newer compression standards and security.

Example compression of a full folder of images:

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I'll try to update this over time as I come across more tools. Feedback welcome.

[webfork]

Update here ... listing out programs that either don't support archives or password-protected archives

* YACReader - supports various archives but nothing with password protection
* Quickview - same as YACReader above
* Imagine - supports ZIP archives
* STDU Viewer - supports CBZ (zip) archives
* Wildbit Viewer / Editor
* FastStone Image Viewer
* XNView Classic
* Tom's Viewer
* FocusOn Image Viewer
* FreeVimager
* qimgv
* Nomacs

[webfork]

Update here: I did a bunch of digging for the best settings to put together a batch compression trick using 7zip's 7za command-line program with all the best settings.

Code: Select all

"C:\Temp\7-Zip\7za64.exe" a "C:\Temp\Photos.7z" "c:\Temp\Photos\*.*" -mx1 -r -mhe -pPASSWORD 

Just replace PASSWORD and set the folder locations. If you're uploading to a cloud drive, add "-v10m" as below:

Code: Select all

"C:\Temp\7-Zip\7za64.exe" a "C:\Temp\Photos.7z" "c:\Temp\Photos\*.*" -mx1 -r -mhe -pPASSWORD 

... this breaks up the archive into 10 meg chunks which should work with just about every cloud service available.

Short explanation of the above tags:

* mx1 = fastest possible compression, which is usually more than adequate for photos and means fast creation and reading
* r = grabs folders and any sub-folders (recursive)
* mhe = better security
* -pPASSWORD = adds encryption and a password

More on command line info and using 7za backup.