Comments on: Update Adobe Reader now!

By: dawn

dawn — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:46:25 +0000

I cannot get rid of my frozen adobe install on my Mac OS 10.4.11. It just sits there even when I press exit!

By: Frank Moorman

Frank Moorman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:49:28 +0000

I also have used Foxit. I do not even notice the tiny add they put in the corner. As for Linux, They do have a linux version available and I have used it.

By: John Quirke

John Quirke — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:41:07 +0000

Perhaps “dump Adobe Reader now!” would have been a better headline :)

By: Frank Moorman

Frank Moorman — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:10:02 +0000

I have been using foxit for about 6-9 months now. I have not had a problem. It loads very quick while Adobe’s reader is slow to even on a powerful AMDx2-4400+ machine. I have not had any problems reading any documents with it either. Here is the link to Foxit’s website: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

By: ffextensionguru

ffextensionguru — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:07:17 +0000

Been using Foxit without problems for quite sometime now and would never go back to Adobe. I don’t recall seeing ads other than what Percy mentioned for their own products. I believe what they mean by adware free is their product does not cotain any hidden ‘features’ which track your usage or do other things such as generate pop-up ads.

By: MagnoliaSouth

MagnoliaSouth — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:31:28 +0000

I love Foxit! I can’t remember how I came upon it but Adobe’s application loads slower than molasses in an Alaskan January. Foxit is instantaneous. I mean *click* and it’s open. I’ve loved it ever since I got it, had no problems with the download and I’ve no idea what ad thing Michael is talking about. If there is an ad in the corner, I’ve not even noticed it so that says something I think. As for adware there isn’t any.

By: Percy Cabello

Percy Cabello — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:33:26 +0000

Howard, I also keep an eye on SumatraPDF, but it’s too basic right now even for reading only. But it certainly looks promising and there’s been at least a couple of emails about a Mozilla plugin which would be great.

My hopes are on native read/write PDF support for Gecko 1.9 (Firefox 3 rendering engine), though.

By: Percy Cabello

Percy Cabello — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:28:49 +0000

Michael, regarding adware I haven’t seen an ad besides a very small banner in the menu bar for their own products, which is fair enough for me.

Also, I haven’t had a problem reading any PDF so far (about a year and a half), could you point to the document so I can try it?

I guess, as usual, it depends on how you use a certain tool. My use of PDFs is almost 100% reading: no annotation, ebooks and other stuff, so I really don’t miss any other feature.

By: Michael Lefevre

Michael Lefevre — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:45:55 +0000

I tried Foxit and wasn’t too impressed. First I had problems with installation, then having got it installed, it wouldn’t display one of the PDFs I came across later that day. Although it’s certainly faster than Adobe’s reader, the UI seemed a bit unpolished.

Also, as well as not being open source (of course Adobe isn’t either), it’s only free (as in no money) for personal use, and only available for Windows.

The marketing blurb on their website also strikes me as rather unprofessional - the English is poor and there’s a lot of text slagging off “other PDF software”. They claim there is no “adware” in their product, but then say the software does display ads, so I’m not sure how they’re defining “adware”.

By: S. Howard

S. Howard — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:38:15 +0000

There’s also the option of using Sumatra PDF reader - a lightweight open source PDF reader.

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

By: Zona Firefox

Zona Firefox — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:17:44 +0000

I love FoxIt Reader :). PDF download is a helpful extension for manage PDF files too.