Comments on: Best Free PDF Reader

By: Dion

Dion — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:41:20 +0000

I just wanted to thank you for putting me onto PDF-Xchange. It is so much lighter than adobe and does everything I need.

By: MortalHuman

MortalHuman — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:13:13 +0000

Hey Johnny, great post there with the list of apps, I snagged Digsby and will install it later along with a few more goodies here.

Have you heard of Sumatra PDF Reader? That thing is like 250kb and renders fast, is free, and does not require an install.

After switching to 64 bit XP (which I enjoy a lot, by the way), I’m left needing to install my apps again, and I’m looking for alternatives. I’m not sure if I’ll get Foxit or go back to Sumatra for my PDF needs, though. Actually, odds are I’ll just use the Open Office PDF import plugin and just read in office

Of course, I don’t get auto opening of PDF files from browsers that way, so I might pick one of the two stand alones in my comment.

Nice blog, will read some more!

By: Johnny Karp

Johnny Karp — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 19:11:09 +0000

@Rachel
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:06:24 +0000

I used Foxit for a while and I thought it was great. Then I had to print a PDF out. What a nightmare. I waited for 20 minutes and nothing printed. Other users had the same problem. Some users reported they had to wait hours for a file to spool. 10-20 minutes seemed to be the norm. Yikes. I was not going to wait that long. I had the latest version so I tried uninstalling and using some older versions and that didn’t work.

I finally switched to PDF-XChange and I love it. My PDFs print out instantly and it’s a great program overall. I’m not sure if Foxit has fixed this problem, but I feel no need to go back and find out.

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:03:51 +0000

How about Foxit Reader? You might give a try =)

By: Bilgisayarınız İçin 72 Ücretsiz Yazılım | catlakses.com

Bilgisayarınız İçin 72 Ücretsiz Yazılım | catlakses.com — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:09:27 +0000

[...] PDF XChange Viewer – Very good PDF reader, a lot faster than Adobe Reader. And there?s even more: you can convert your PDF files to various file formats, including BMP, JPG, PNG or TIFF. It can be integrated with Firefox or Internet Explorer. [...]

By: Johnny Karp

Johnny Karp — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:19:59 +0000

@krisvek
Please come back and tell us how it went with PDF X-change. I’m satisfied with it so far.

By: krisvek

krisvek — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:28:35 +0000

That is also incorrect news about Foxit. The toolbar, etc., are in no way required. Just like many other free programs, you simply have to opt out of those ‘features’ during the installation. You DO pay attention to the installation routine, don’t you, Koch1882?

I hadn’t heard of PDF X-change, so I’ll definitely give it a shot. How does Sumatra stack up?

By: Johnny Karp

Johnny Karp — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:01:52 +0000

@Koch1882
That’s sad news about Foxit. I liked PDF X-change better anyway

By: Koch1882

Koch1882 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:54:18 +0000

And, as of December 2008, the new Foxit 3.0 now comes with adware that must be installed – a toolbar and an eBay icon. Foxit 3.0 is in effect no longer free and no different than Adobe bloatware. I just switched to PDF X-Change and love it. a 25mb vs. 15mb memory footprint is trivial, and yes it loads faster than Foxit.