Our Story

The birth of PhoXo is quite an interesting story. Back in 1998, when I started university and began learning C++, At first, I simply wanted to create a small image program to help me practice programming. But before long, I became deeply fascinated by the world of image processing. After graduating, I released PhoXo V1.0 in 2003, and spent the next ten years developing it in my spare time.

So why did development stop after 2014?
The main reason is that its kernel was still based on code I wrote in university, no longer suited for modern OS and CPUs. Maintenance became tough. It was like the first-generation Iron Man suit - It badly needed an upgrade.
So I decided to rewrite it. It's a big project, and at my slow pace, a new version of PhoXo might take 3–5 years.

Over the years, as the number of photos on my computer grew (more than 70,000), I needed a fast image viewer that could quickly display photos and help me search by capture date. But most software was ​​bloated and slow, packed with editing and photo management features I didn’t need.
So, I built my own. From day one, I focused purely on speed — ultra-fast image viewing, nothing more, ​leaving editing to a separate program.
That’s why PhoXo has many editing tools, while PhoxoSee is minimal. Next, I plan to create a small companion editor: PhoxoEdit.
  
In the blink of an eye, it has been 20 years since the first version was released in 2003. The CPU has evolved from single-core to multi-core, and the smallest unit of memory appears to have shifted from KB to GB. Finding software packages under 10MB seems nearly impossible now. Developers who once pursued performance are now considered old-fashioned.
Yet, the original intention of the PhoXo series software remains unchanged: to develop lean, high-performance, user-friendly software. This was true in the past and will continue to be so in the future.