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If your PC has an optical disc burner like a DVD or Blu-Ray burner, you can create DVDs that you can play in your home entertainment system, boot discs that can help you start your PC when something goes wrong, and data discs that can safely store backups, archives, disk images and copies, and other data. However, to make all that easy, you need help in the form of a good disc-burning utility. ImgBurn from Lightning UK fits the bill. This lightweight freeware burns CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs, depending of course on your system's capabilities: You'll need a Blu-Ray burner to burn Blu-Ray discs with ImgBurn, for example, just like with every other disc-burning tool. What ImgBurn does is simplify what can be a complicated, error-prone process.
ImgBurn's two-part interface displays controls and the program's log file in separate windows. The Log window is designed to stay open all the time when the program is working, and it displays important information about your tasks. Separating it from the main window makes it easier to place on the desktop. The main window hints at how easy ImgBurn is to use by listing its features with descriptive icons: Write image file to disc; Write files/folders to disc; Create image file from disc; Create image file from files/folders; Verify disc; and Discovery, which requires additional software and can verify the quality of your discs as you burn them. Since we had a DVD disc image left over from a holiday project, we started with that. Each feature opens a businesslike settings dialog. We inserted a blank DVD-R, and the program verified its size, capacity, and other parameters. ImgBurn offers Test Mode and Verify options as well as settings for Write Speed (including an automatic option) and number of copies. Advanced options include drive-specific settings with the ability to select your drive's OEM options. ImgBurn also offers an erase tool, drive controls, and tools for creating CUE, DVD, and MDS files.
Many other disc burners have left us cold, but ImgBurn lived up to its promise of easy burning without sacrificing flexibility.
ImgBurn - Create all sorts of CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs - Download Video Previews:Publisher's Description
From LIGHTNING UK:
ImgBurn is a lightweight CD, DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-ray burning application. It has several modes, each for performing a different tasks such as read a disc to an image file, creates an image file from files on your computer or network (you also can write the files directly to a disc), write an image file to a disc, ensure that a disc is 100% readable (you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct), and discovery used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing.
What's new in this version: Version 2.5.7 has added ability to perform LiteOn's Smart Erase functions, added ability to translate the image or disc size values on the recently added 'Overburn or Truncate' prompt, and Changed renaming items in the Explorer pane of the DLE window.
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All versions:
4.1 starsout of 235 votes
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Current version:
3.4 starsout of 27 votes
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My rating:
Write review
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"Don't like it's ripping method"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Works well, is fast, and does what it says it does.
Cons
Rips CD (and DVDs, I assume) to proprietary image files, not copies of the files on the disk. The image files are useless, except for burning, so they need to be deleted when you are done burning from them. If that is all you want to do with image files, that is fine. But I'd like to be able to play the CDs I rip, not just clog up my hard drive with useless image files.
Summary
Not what I was looking for, which was a simple program to rip CDs in their original format.
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"Works great, the bundled crapware is ridiculous"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Quick and easy to use, great for burning bootable .iso's.
Cons
I was pretty certain I had unchecked the loads and loads of crapware that was bundled in the installer but I still ended up with Firefox completely hijacked, popups and redirects galore. Two days later still trying to get rid of remnants. The changes it made to Firefox was just unbelievable! This is a work pc, the time wasted trying fix everything that it broke was not worth it!!!
Summary
I have been using Cnet downloads for years and always found the site to be a great and trustworthy place to go for good software, not anymore!!! With that one download you guys have flushed every bit of goodwill that you've earned in the past right down the toilet!
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"don't get near this sw with a 100 foot pole"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
SW works ok.
Cons
Got huge numbers of garbage downloads, toolbars, and god knows what else.
Summary
Will file complaints with BBB.org for CNET and download.com. Not sure how many viruses, unwanted toolbars, spyware, adware and whatever else was downloaded from CNET.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS WEBSITE -
"Abandoned the installation as it tries to install junk!"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Don't know as I gave up installation as it installed add ons and bloatware despite unchecking.
Cons
Full of junk bloatware!
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"The burner is great, but it comes bundled with Malware"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
I used the burned last night and found it to be really easy to use. The steps are pretty straightforward, and it operated really fast and burned a great quality DVD. So for that, I am happy.
Cons
Although I clearly specified no add-ons, I noticed immediately after downloading it that my entire computer had been hijacked by a program called mixi.dj. Not only had it installed itself, but it had taken over my browsers.
I had a really hard time removing it completely. I had to manually remove it from the programs, and then I had to go through several stages to remove it from the browsers (it had buried itself in several different places and, thus, kept popping up every time I opened my browser). After that, I had to go into the computer's registry to remove it manually.
Altogether, I probably spent about 1 1/2 hours trying to remove it, and am still not sure that it's entirely gone. (I'm doing a Malware search as we speak.) So if you want this "free" DVD burner, be aware that you actually get it at a high price to your computer's security.Summary
As much as I like CNET, I'm disappointed that this site would help orchestrate the download of a program that comes bundled with malware. The editors should have made a note about that or issued some kind of warning, because it's really not fair to the users to have to worry about their own computer security from a site they should be able to trust.
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"Works Good For Burning CD's"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
I use it for burning CD's to listen to in my car and for that it works great.
Cons
None that I've come across.
Summary
Can only recommend it for what I use it for and that is burning audio CD's
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"Worked like a charm"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Does what it says it does and is easy to use.
Cons
Nothing, it did exactly what I need it to do.
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"this is a nice little program and works easily"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
easy to load and use
Cons
none yet only used it once so far
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"Good Software, Installer SUX"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Works very well to burn DVD's from an ISO image. I was doing a batch of about 20 disks and it steps through them quickly and easily. Very simple and intuitive UI.
Cons
The C Net installer is terrible and it tries very hard to install a bunch of toolbar and other browser related junk on the computer. ALL of which is opt out in nature. As long as you're careful to uncheck EVERYTHING it seems to work ok.
Summary
Software great, installer from CNet terrible that's a summary in a nutshell. I would certainly download and use the software again.
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"Better than spending big money for a commercial package"
Version: ImgBurn 2.5.7
Pros
Easy to understand yet powerful interface. Nice professional touches like the way it handles the disk label. Very stable. I've burned about 5 discs with zero coasters. I'm just burning lots of data and video I shot that I don't want the risk of being on a hard drive. This does the job for long term archiving. I'm running it on Vista 64 bit, an old install that's had lot's of software added and removed and it still runs smoothly. No conflicts with my backup software (rebit) or AV (Malwarebytes and Security Essentials. I liked it enough to contribute money to the project.
Cons
None so far.
Summary
This is the first Blu-ray burning software I've owned. I've used nero and Infrarecorder. ImgBurn does a much better job on Blu-ray's that Infrarecorder does on DVD's in my opinion. Will be using ImgBurn for all my optical media recording work.
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