Okay, so in the past, I've been using Adobe Reader 7.0, Adobe's attractive, free PDF reader. Never ran into any bugs, but the program always had two faults; it was extremely slow, and it was enormous! So, a couple months ago, I upgraded to Adobe Reader 7.0.5, and I found that it loaded quite a bit faster than its predecessor, due to an added startup process. I was absolutely thrilled, because now my PDF's only took about 15 seconds to load, as opposed to around 30 seconds or so with 7.0. Still, I couldn't see how Adobe could justify how bloated the app is; once installed, it occupied over 64 MBs! In my opinion, that is just awful!
So, while floating around FileHippo.com, I found a nifty little app called Foxit Reader 1.3.1231. The download was 1.11 MB, so I figured, this has got to be crap. After downloading it, it only took 2.66 MB. And what really amazed me is that it looks just as great as Adobe Reader! The icons are sleek, it loads up instantly, and it renders text and images just as well as Adobe did, only faster!
I don't know how this works, but somehow, Foxit Reader manages to beat Adobe Reader in every single aspect. Way faster, way smaller, installs and uninstalls are instantaneous, and no resource hogging startup processes. If there is anyone still using Adobe Reader, remove it now! You needn't force yourselves to suffer any longer!
Yep weve been recommending this for a while now.(its in the freeware thread)
It integrates fine with the browsers just opening when it needs too but if it wants to be truely the best then it needs to be able to open in a ff tab.
It integrates fine with the browsers just opening when it needs too but if it wants to be truely the best then it needs to be able to open in a ff tab.
Doesn't open in a Firefox tab, eh? That's a shame. But frankly, I see that as a small price to pay. Sorry about missing that in the freeware thread. I've basically been avoiding that one because it is so huge, and I didn't feel like weeding through the useful and the useless.
Doesn't open in a Firefox tab, eh? That's a shame. But frankly, I see that as a small price to pay.
I completely agree.
Sorry about missing that in the freeware thread. I've basically been avoiding that one because it is so huge, and I didn't feel liking weeding through the useful and the useless.
I cleaned it up a bit removing all the conversations and stuff. If it was posted by a regular member you can trust it for sure. There is some great stuff in there make sure you check it out.
Foxit is great if you just need to read PDFs. For those who need the additional functions provided by Adobe (like creating PDFs), they can speed it up a lot with this: Adobe Reader Speed-Up http://www.tnk-bootblock.co.uk/
It quickly disables a bunch of Adobe plugins that almost no one uses. It can restore them just as quickly (which you have to do to update Adobe).
For those who need the additional functions provided by Adobe (like creating PDFs)...
Adobe Reader does not give you the ability to create PDFs. It only allows you to read them. You need Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs, and the Standard version costs $299. So other than the having a huge list of rarely used options and the ability to open in an FF tab, Adobe Reader offers basically no more functionality than Foxit, yet it is far slower and far larger.
If you want to be able to create PDFs for free, get OpenOffice.org 2.0.1. It lets you render your finished documents as PDFs in Writer. Not to mention, OpenOffice makes a great substitute for MS Office; it's free, good, and doesn't support MS!
I'm not a huge fan of PDFs either; I think it's a bloated format that consumes more space per file than is necessary. Of course, I feel the same way about DOCs; WPDs usually take about 1/6 the size of a DOC, and don't seem to be lacking any capabilities. That said, I still use PDFs and DOCs for compatibility's sake.
But I figure having OpenOffice.org saves me from dropping $400 for MS Office, and another $300 for Adobe Acrobat. I don't understand what features could exist in these two apps that would truly be worth $700 more than OpenOffice; how much more utility could they offer?
AbiWord is great too, so thank you for informing me of it, rridgely.
Glenn, I dont think so many sites use PDF, very few imho. And when they do, I can live without it.
PDF just a hassle.
lokoke, I use OpenOffice.org too, it is great!
Fair enough. We just frequent different neighbourhoods so to speak. I have to use a lot of technical reference documents which are in PDF and most of my work is published in PDF.
Okay, so in the past, I've been using Adobe Reader 7.0, Adobe's attractive, free PDF reader. Never ran into any bugs, but the program always had two faults; it was extremely slow, and it was enormous! So, a couple months ago, I upgraded to Adobe Reader 7.0.5, and I found that it loaded quite a bit faster than its predecessor, due to an added startup process. I was absolutely thrilled, because now my PDF's only took about 15 seconds to load, as opposed to around 30 seconds or so with 7.0. Still, I couldn't see how Adobe could justify how bloated the app is; once installed, it occupied over 64 MBs! In my opinion, that is just awful!
So, while floating around FileHippo.com, I found a nifty little app called Foxit Reader 1.3.1231. The download was 1.11 MB, so I figured, this has got to be crap. After downloading it, it only took 2.66 MB. And what really amazed me is that it looks just as great as Adobe Reader! The icons are sleek, it loads up instantly, and it renders text and images just as well as Adobe did, only faster!
I don't know how this works, but somehow, Foxit Reader manages to beat Adobe Reader in every single aspect. Way faster, way smaller, installs and uninstalls are instantaneous, and no resource hogging startup processes. If there is anyone still using Adobe Reader, remove it now! You needn't force yourselves to suffer any longer!
is it available for fedora4?
Glenn, I dont think so many sites use PDF, very few imho. And when they do, I can live without it.
I can't compare it to KPDF since I've never used it, but I can say that I have no complaints major enough to give me a reason to switch to anything else. Foxit Reader is a huge improvement over Adobe Reader, so to be honest, I have no desire to test out anything else for now. Foxit meets all of my current PDF reading needs.
I can't compare it to KPDF since I've never used it, but I can say that I have no complaints major enough to give me a reason to switch to anything else. Foxit Reader is a huge improvement over Adobe Reader, so to be honest, I have no desire to test out anything else for now. Foxit meets all of my current PDF reading needs.
I have a question about Foxit that I hope someone can answer for me. I downloaded Foxit today, and unistalled Adobe. I don't understand the instructions that Foxit gives to make it the default PDF reader. Will it automatically become the default PDF reader because Adobe is gone?
I have a question about Foxit that I hope someone can answer for me. I downloaded Foxit today, and unistalled Adobe. I don't understand the instructions that Foxit gives to make it the default PDF reader. Will it automatically become the default PDF reader because Adobe is gone?
Thank You!!
K
By default it should ask you when you first start up foxit if you want it to be the default pdf reader, just click yes when prompted. If for any reason it did not ask you or you clicked no, run foxit then click help and make sure "Set to default pdf reader"