3rd Party Viewers

--== What Is a Viewer? ==--

Viewers (aka Clients) are your means to accessing Second Life. It's very similar to how a browser accesses the internet. Each viewer has its own unique features, advantages and disadvantages that make some more favorable than others, depending on the user. This is a short list of 3rd party Viewers that are recommended over the Default Viewer provided by Linden Lab for various reasons.

--== Why Not the Default Viewer? ==--

The default viewer has no glaring issues that make it outright unusable. But it does lack a number of features or performance enhancements that cause it to be less preferred than 3rd party Viewers. It does, however, have the distinct advantage of receiving new feature updates before 3rd party devs can incorporate them. So if you're curious about "the new thing" SL can do, the default Viewer is for you.

--== Viewers ==--

** Firestorm **

Download Link: https://www.firestormviewer.org/choose-your-platform/

The premiere choice, and the go-to for many users on Second Life. Most people in this General use Firestorm, so it's also the easiest to get info on if you have any questions regarding settings or features. Firestorm's main advantage 'is' the amount of features it has. Things like the ability to client-side derender assets such as landscape objects, particle/sound/light emitters, or avatar attachments. There are features that allow you to search for objects based on criteria like who made it, who owns it, what's in the description or name field, etc.. Firestorm also has numerous Advanced and Debug tools that can change up or make many experiences in Second Life easier. In short, while other Viewers may have the same or similar features, Firestorm has the most, all in one package.

The only cons are the dev team is infamously slow to incorporate Linden Lab made updates into their Viewer. Past updates such as the Bento avatar skeleton, Animesh and the Environmental Enhancement Project have all taken months to incorporate into Firestorm after Linden Lab has had it stabilized in the default Viewer. There also tends to be issues with some optimization, which can result in performance issues for mid to low-tier PCs. Memory leaks are common, and crowded areas can slow the Viewer down to a halt even with lowered graphics settings.

** Alchemy **

Download Links: https://www.alchemyviewer.org/pages/downloads.html
                https://git.alchemyviewer.org/alchemy/alchemy-next/-/packages/

What Alchemy lacks in features, it makes up for in performance. The main goal with this Viewer is to provide the most optimized experience for a non-text based Viewer. If you have a lower-end PC and want to multi-task without shortening the lifespan of your CPU, or just want to have better framerates without the best visuals, Alchemy has several features to aid in a smoother experience.

The biggest detriment to Alchemy is the update consistency. While it is actively being worked on, there is some internal disagreement on what is to be deemed "release worthy" and newer builds are currently only available from their discord or their gitlab as a result.

** Black Dragon (Niran) **

Download Link: https://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Black Dragon (FKA Niran's Viewer) is primarily designed to make SL look good. Unique to this Viewer are visual enhancements that effect lighting, shadows, and environmental presets. Additional features such as a built-in Avatar poser make this the quintessential Viewer for users looking to take photographs. If you plan on showing off the visual capabilities of SL through pictures or video, this is the Viewer to go for.

Despite its graphical focus, Black Dragon is fairly well optimized and not expected to run your PC into the ground. It is also backed by a patreon community and receives regular updates. The only drawback is the dev specifically makes a point to take out any "bells and whistles" he deems unnecessary, so it lacks a number of key features that might seem basic for other Viewers, in comparison.