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Foxit Reader is fast, free alternative to Adobe Reader for 99% of PDF documents.
As you might expect, Adobe's free Acrobat PDF reader is the definitive tool for reading Adobe's own PDF format. However, it's certainly not the only tool, nor is it neccessarily the best.
One of the frequent complaints about Acrobat Reader is that it can be quite slow to load as it loads and processes modules that 99% of users never need to read a simple PDF file.
Now there is a choice. Foxit Reader offers users a very fast and free alternative to reading PDF files.
In addition to its speed, Foxit is also a much smaller download, at nearly 1/10th the size of the Adobe Acrobat reader.
There are a couple of small caveats...
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The Foxit company is, of course, a business. Offering Foxit Reader for free is an incentive for you to visit their site, become familiar with their products and hopefully purchase some of the other products they offer that are not free. The choice, of course, is yours, but I'm discussing specifically the free Foxit Reader which is a simple download that doesn't require any of your information.
Once installed, you need to check the updates because many of the updates are actually trial versions of some of Foxit's add-ons and are not free. Check the updates carefully before selecting which you want to install.
Since Adobe can be said to "own" the PDF format, occasionally there will be newer features or incompatibilities. The most recent version of Foxit Reader (2.3, at this writing), resolved all the incompatibilities that I've run into, but the potential still exists. Foxit seems to be relatively quick to track and update Foxit Reader to accommodate any issues.
But the bottom line is that Foxit Reader is a fine alternative to Adobe Reader for 99% of the PDF documents out there. It's nice to have a document snap right up on the display, rather than waiting while Adobe Reader cycles through its loading sequence.
Article C3431 - June 30, 2008
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I, too, was unhappy with all the "stuff" that Adobe Reader insists on installing when it is started. So, when I recently had to re-install Windows XP Pro after a hard disk drive (HDD) failure, I opted to install Foxit instead of Adobe to read PDF files. No regrets yet. It opens and prints all the .pdf files I've thrown at it so far. I will probably visit the Adobe web site and download their latest free reader, just because... because it IS Adobe. However, for now, Foxit is "good enuf". BTW, I strongly recommend downloading and installing the free PDF Creator from the SourceForge web site. It's a great program for saving to disk, or memory stick, web pages and documents you want to look at offline and maybe print on another computer with a better printer.
16-Mar-2011
Posted by: Howard B. Evans, Jr. at March 15, 2011 10:23 AM
I've used the toolbar-free version of FOXIT for years, on a Windows XP Pro machine, and am quite satisfied with it's performance.
Posted by: jojibro at March 15, 2011 12:50 PMHi,
Posted by: R Menon at March 15, 2011 1:59 PMI've used adobe, foxit, pdf xchange viewer and nitro pdf reader (beta). Of the lot nitro is by far the best. It is still in beta mode but allows limited editing including commenting and adding text and highlighting.
The other one which allows this in the freeware version is pdf xchange reader, but nitro is a bit more polished.
Needless to mention all three are freeware, but the annoyance quotient with the bundled toolbars etc is the least again with the nitro and highest with foxit.
If you want a good reader with some editing capability go for nitro rather than foxit.
Adobe is virtual crapware. Foxit is ok.
PDF-Exchange is free and better than both IMO.
Never tried Nitro
Posted by: spelingchampeon at October 26, 2011 8:48 PMI have tried to print of a page in foxit reader which had drop down boxes but it printed them instead of the info they contain. Does anyone know how to change this so it does not print the box.
Posted by: Rob at January 8, 2012 8:37 AM