aBurner is a lightweight disc recording software for Windows

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 27, 2013
Updated • Dec 27, 2013
Software
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5

The choice of disc recording software usually comes down to functionality before other factors such as bloat, performance and other factors are taken into consideration.

Functionality does not mean that the program with the largest set of features wins automatically though. If you take Nero Burning Rom for instance. It was once a lightweight easy to use disc burning software for Windows, but the parent company made the decision to add tons of additional tools to it that made it bloatware in my opinion.

The free program aBurner is a disc recording software for Windows that is as light as it can get. It ships with core functionality that many users require, such as the burning of data, audio and video discs.

The interface looks similar to how ftp clients look like. You see the local file system on the left side, and the disc on the right. Files can be dragged and dropped to the disc to be burned on it.

The lower half of the screen displays the three different burning modes that aBurner supports right now. Selected by default is the Data CD / DVD mode which you can switch to Audio CD or video disc.

To burn an audio CD for example, you simply drag and drop audio files into the interface. The program will scan them automatically to add them to the interface afterwards.

It highlights the used space and how much is still free, so that you can add more files or remove some from the selection. The program supports FLAC, MP3, OGG and WMA audio formats.

One issue that I noticed during the process was that the application did not keep the default sort order of the audio files. This can be fixed though by using the up and down buttons in the main toolbar.

All that is left afterwards is to hit the burn disc icon or use F2 to start the burning process. This opens the burn settings dialog that is different depending on what type of disc you are burning.

burn-audio-cd

As far as audio CDs are concerned, you can modify the burn mode and speed, set CD-Text disc and track, or change the pause between audio files on disc.

Another interesting feature in regards to audio CDs is the ability to rip music from audio discs. The program taps into FreeDB's vast music database to identify the tracks automatically.

Data disc burn settings are more advanced than that. They are displayed as five tabs giving you options to change the burn format (ISO9660, Mode 2 or UDF, make the disc bootable, add publisher settings, or set various dates for the volume.

burn-data-disc

Other notable features include the ability to create multi-session discs, support for disk image formats (direct ISO and UDF, indirectly through conversion IMG. BIN, MDF, XMF, NRG, BWI, B5I, CDI, PDI), Unicode support, or support for overburning discs.

Plus, it is fully portable and compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of all recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Closing Words

The developer homepage is in Russian, which can be quite problematic if you are looking for support. The program interface on the other hand is also available in English, so that you should not run into any issues using the app.

If you are looking for a lightweight disc burning software for Windows, you may want to give aBurner a try as it is exactly that.

Now Read: How to burn DVDs with ImgBurn

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Comments

  1. cybernard said on January 3, 2014 at 4:18 pm
    Reply

    How about cdburnerxp.se

    More features, and is a supports 32/64 and XP,7,8 and etc.
    It is only 5.2mb
    You may select to disagree to the adware and still get the software to install.

  2. EvanBauer said on December 28, 2013 at 8:05 pm
    Reply

    …looks very good, until you mentioned its “Russian” source.

    Do you know that source to be reputable and trustworthy ?

    A fundamental PC security principle is:
    “Download and install software only from trusted sources”

    Assume you run standard anti-malware tests on all the software you review… but I do not see that stated anywhere. And even reputable freeware/software can carry undesirable adware, phone-home implementations, etc.

    Prefer your reviews included some mention of the safety & security of the software evaluated.

  3. smaragdus said on December 28, 2013 at 10:25 am
    Reply

    I could not run aBurner on my Winwows 8 x64 machine- it showed ‘Installed CD/DVD drives searching…’ screen for ever and never initiated. Program Compatibility Troubleshooter says it is incompatible.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on December 28, 2013 at 10:54 am
      Reply

      I have only tested it on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine and it worked fine there.

  4. Steven Abeyta said on December 27, 2013 at 3:41 pm
    Reply

    Looks good! A worthy sidekick to InfraRecorder. But given that my drive only wants to read and not write, well, I’m unable to burn, baby. ;)

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