There are other alternatives....

General Topics
1

Hi malware fighters,

Some use FoxitReader as an alternative for Adobe’s product (because of certain security issues and major updating and upgrading problems - these weren’t handled correctly).
But there are more alternatives for the home user:
Think for instance of PDF-XChange Viewer

http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer/

and Sumatra PDF
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

Descriptions of the software and user experieces you can find here
on download.cnet.com could be helpful as well:
http://download.cnet.com/Foxit-Reader/3000-10743_4-10313206.html
http://download.cnet.com/PDF-XChange-Viewer/3000-10743_4-10598377.html
http://download.cnet.com/Sumatra-PDF-Viewer/3000-10743_4-10698785.html

What is your PDF Reader of Choice?

pol

2

Me? Sumatra PDF…It may have limited features, as I have been told, but it does the job for me :wink:

I use the portable version, running from the hard drive. This means less installation of software, and also, I i want to remove it, I just delete the folder it is contained in. Just makes life easier… :slight_smile:

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/sumatra_pdf_portable

-Scott-

3

sticking to Adobe, can’t see any reason to change… (security flaws have been addressed as far as I know -a javascript one for instance - and updating has never been a problem for me). I’ve been fighting on a Linux forums to have Adobe Reader work again with a new GTK version, because I couldn’t stand the alternative readers there…got fixed :wink:

4

Really???

The only time I use adobe, is at school, when I forget my memory stick…so no chioce (if I have to use it…)

5

i use foxit reader from 2 years or less ;D

6

I like and use coolPDFreader because it is free, small (904 kb or less depending on the type of installer), uses very little resources, and is very fast.

http://www.pdf2exe.com/reader.html

8 reasons to choose coolPDFreader :

View and Print PDF
Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS
Extract PDF to TXT
Support PDF files of all versions
Work with 68+ different languages
Zoom in/out and Rotate page displays
Slide show PDF document with full screen
Small in size, only 650KB (installed program)

7

i will test it but all those features and 650 kb :o

8

Sticking with Adobe here too. No reason to change.

9

Security is one good reason :slight_smile:

10

The multiple security issues we hear about makes that more that one reason ;D

11

it’s nothing more than a security flaw like in Firefox or Internet Explorer, and it’s getting fixed too. Thing is sometimes it takes a while before the fix from Adobe comes I admit. Took about a month last summer until the update came. Until then they advised to deactivate javascript…so yeah, this can be discussed.

12

Problem is these flaws/vulnerabilities keep being found with a frequency better than the buses round my way.

It is just another vulnerability waiting to be found and exploit. Hardly a week go by without another horror story, aside from it is a bloated application for what is supposed to be a PDF reader. Not to mention it takes them forever to get their act together to close the vulnerability.

13

Adobe put out a patch for the reader today which takes it to v9.2 . I agree, it’s no different from patching anything else that the lowlifes had found a way to hack. I’ve never had a problem and never even disabled java or anything else.

14

Adobe put out a patch for the reader today which takes it to v9.2 . I agree, it’s no different from patching anything else that the lowlifes had found a way to hack. I’ve never had a problem and never even disabled java or anything else. Hell, I don’t even block ads, sometimes they’re more interesting than the page they’re on. ;D (I also have had the experience that blocking ads actually made my browsing slower.)

15

blocking ads make your browsing slower…you already said today that giving GMX as a secondary address on a new Gmail account brought you tons of spam in your GMX inbox… ;D we must not surf the same Internet then :wink:

16

I’ve had a gmx email account for years and hardly ever get any spam.

17

In addition to the security reasons, Adobe Reader is very slow compared to the alternatives.

18

I never got any Bob, until I made a Gmail account and gave Gmx as an alternative email. Then I got tons of spam advertising mail immediately after. I don’t use the spam filter in Gmx and I access it through Outlook Express, so all the spam came through. I don’t use any anti-spam software at all. I don’t blame the spam on Gmx, I blame it on Google giving the Gmx address to the advertisers.

And yes, the last time I tried an ad blocker was a couple of years ago with IE7. It not only slowed down some page loads, it even prevented some pages from loading at all. I have not tried doing it since then.

19

i switched to Foxit reader because it does the same things as adobe and uses about 90% less of hard disk.

20

PDF-XChange Viewer user, here. The reason is as same as others…I’m yet another security refugee from Adobe’s. Also, PDF-Xchange Viewer has a portable version.

Off Topic

Are you sure about this? I have given my ISP’s mail address to Gmail but I haven’t gotten any spam. Also, probably, it would be wise to use some kind of spamfilter, if you get it at all. If someone complains about spam, I recommend them to use gmail as a spam filter. Some people here recommend applications such as Mail Washer.