April 22, 2009
Foxit Reader Review: The Free Adobe Acrobat Reader Replacement
Is there a better alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader? Yes! Foxit Reader.
If you use a computer you know about pdf documents. If you are like me you have hundreds of them stored on your computer.
If you are new to computing you will eventually run across pdf documents and need to read them. In order to read a pdf document you need a pdf viewer or reader as it's called.
Video: Foxit Reader Review: The Free Adobe Acrobat Reader Replacement
(Length – 6:02)
Download Foxit Reader 3.0 for Windows
The most popular pdf reader is Adobe Acrobat. It's been around forever and owns a lion's share of the market.
You can download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view pdfs but you do so at a cost. What's the cost?
- A bloated 41MB file size. That's one heavy download to just be able to view pdf's. Why is the Adobe Acrobat Reader so large? It's because they add a ton (no pun intended) of features that average users don't need.
- Slow PDF launches . Adobe opens up PDF's slowly at least it does on my Windows XP machine and that seems to be a common complaint of other Acorbat users. It's a real pain waiting for Acrobat to open up to read a pdf.
The solution to this problem is to replace Adobe Acrobat with Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader is a free pdf viewer similar to Acrobat but more streamlined and easier to use.
Two big differences between Foxit and Acrobat is that the Foxit pdf reader is 37MB lighter than Acrobat and faster. (Light-weight people are usually faster than over-weight people aren't they?) Double-click on a pdf and Foxit opens it up in the blink of an eye.
Foxit PDF Reader Advantages:
- Small. 3.57 MB for the .exe file.
- Fast. Launches pdfs lickety-split.
- Not annoying. No splash window displaying company logo or author names bugging you every time you launch it.
- Annotation tool. Draw graphics, highlight text, type text and make notes on a PDF document and then print out or save the annotated document.
- Fillable forms. Save fillable forms after filling them out so you can continue anytime.
- Text converter. Convert the whole PDF document into a simple text file.
- Security and Privacy. Foxit Reader highly respects the security and privacy of users and will never connect to the Internet without users' permission while other PDF readers often silently connect.
What others are saying about Foxit Reader
"Foxit Reader takes very little memory compared to Adobe Reader works just as well as. Very quick."
"Watch out when you download Foxit Reader. Use a custom install otherwise you might get stuck with unwanted tool bars."
My recommendation about Foxit Reader.
This program does what it promises to do, views PDF's. It' fast. It's free. Give Foxit Reader a try.
Download Foxit Reader 3.0 for Windows
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