There are a lot of free image browsers out there, of which Gallery is probably the most famous. However, those applications are mostly too complicated and bloated to do what I want, and mostly you have to upload your images with a built-in tool. This is not really what I was looking for, so being the geek I am, I decided to write my own.

Browser (yes, the name is indeed very original) is a small PHP hack, none the less with a fair amount of structure. It generates a nice (and valid) html page when you open a directory on your web server with images in it. It's fully automated, all you have to do is install it somewhere and dump your images somewhere beneath that directory. See it in action right here.

The most current version is 0.3.1. It does everything it should do, but there is still some obvious room for improvement. Right now I'm quite happy with it, but should you find a bug, don't be afraid to drop me a line.

The only requirements are a web server with a recent version of PHP (successfully tested since version 4.3) and GD2 installed as an extension. If you enable the automatic thumbnailing (highly recommended), you are free to choose to save the thumbnails on the filesystem (fastest and easiest) or in a database. The database code requires ADOdb and a supported database (tested on MySQL and PostgreSQL).

Download the latest version: 0.3.1 (13 KB zip-file)