On Windows PC's, there are two kinds of free programs: those that focus on you using it for its purpose, and those that are free and let you use it but in fact would rather want you to buy something. For example, 7-zip is a real free program, unlike Winzip which has to ask you to pay for it all the time, even though it can do less than 7-zip. Another example is VLC player in the really free camp, versus realplayer in the other camp. In the past, foxit reader (for PDFs) was like 7-zip, while acrobat was more like winzip, in the above comparison. However I discovered that foxit has now joined the winzip camp instead of the 7-zip camp. The installer of the newest foxit version wants to install two toolbars and shortcuts to ebay. If I hadn't had my full attention to it those things would have been installed now. That's a bad sign for future versions of foxit reader if that's the direction they're heading with it. So there's no real reason to choose foxit over acrobat reader or vica versa anymore, they both want you to buy stuff instead of just let you read PDFs. Well, ok, there still is, foxit luckily still doesn't install background applications and updaters, for now. Does anyone know a PDF reader for Windows that is similar to what foxit reader used to be? Thanks. P.S. I'm not against paying for software (like games, photoshop, ...), but I am against programs for trivial tasks (like converting wav to mp3, burning a CDROM, reading a PDF) that want you to pay for them or something else even though the technology is trivial and freely available, and free alternatives exist (in the PDF case, not necessarily for Windows though). P.S.2. For some reason websites of the realplayer, foxit, etc... camp always use "FREE" in bold, which to me is always a negative warning sign, while something like 7-zip apparantly doesn't need to mention the word "free" anywhere on their website, they just mention what the software does (because their focus is on you using it). Ironic that with less "free"'s on the website it's actually more free. [Edited by - Lode on October 17, 2009 1:28:20 PM]

yeah I stopped using foxit a few weeks ago. I'm using The free version of PDF-XChange. It's perfect for opening PDFs to read and doesn't install anything annoying as far as I can tell. It's also fast.

[Edited by - Sirisian on October 17, 2009 1:19:54 PM]

I have one called PDF-XChange Viewer. I don't recall it ever bothering me to upgrade or running updaters, and it loads about 20x faster than acrobat (everything loads 20x faster than acrobat) and has never crashed. Installed it a long time ago, though, and I can't tell you how it compares to foxit since I've never used that.

Wait.. I've been using Adobe this whole time.. am I missing out?

On Windows I use the Sumatra PDF viewer. It's very lightweight, free, and open-source.

Quote: Original post by Crazyfool
Wait.. I've been using Adobe this whole time.. am I missing out?

yes, Ive only used foxit (older version) but once you use it you'll never go back to acrobat, its ~10x quicker esp reading pdf's in webpages

Quote: Original post by nilkn
On Windows I use the Sumatra PDF viewer. It's very lightweight, free, and open-source.

Nice, that's a very good PDF reader. Uninstalled foxit and installed this one instead. Thanks for the link.

Adobe Reader never really bothers me to buy anything the way that WinZip and WinRAR do. Then again, all I ever do with it is open a PDF, scroll through it, and maybe resize it, so perhaps there are locked features I am not aware of, or something like that.

What is the problem with Adobe Reader? Or have I just not noticed its pleas for me to give it money?

Quote: Original post by jackolantern1
What is the problem with Adobe Reader? Or have I just not noticed its pleas for me to give it money?

It needs rather long to start, compared to Foxit and Sumatra PDF.

On a side note, I've tried all three, and Foxit and Sumatra PDF crash on some PDFs. Adobe Reader is the only one that loads all PDFs without crashing.

It does definitely take a while to load. I have always thought that was a bit odd considering that it is just showing a document.