Along with Irfanview, Faststone and Xnview seem to be the most popular freeware image programs.
My favorite happens to be Irfanview, but I always like trying other programs, especially if they have a better screensaver utility.
Why doesn't Faststone list the history of their version changes and have a forum? The others have both.
I would think the goal of all these programmers is to eventually see their program becomes so popular, that a major software manufacturer buys the rights to it.
The more information there is about the program, the less reluctant one might be to use it.