Adobe may have pioneered the PDF format, but it's been a long time since we've recommended anyone download the free but bulky Adobe Reader for viewing PDF files.
Foxit Reader can open pretty much anything Adobe Reader can, but much much faster.
A few months ago we took another look at Adobe Reader, when we found
Adobe Reader Speedup, which lets you remove some of the plugins that come with Adobe Reader that make its startup time so slow. But most users aren't going to want to install software just so they can uninstall components of other applications.
That's where
Adobe Reader Lite comes in. The application is based on Adobe Reader 8, but several plugins and features have been removed, including:
- Removed license agreement popups
- Removed autorun and desktop shortcuts
- Removed several plugins
It's not entirely clear which plugins were removed, but since most users probably use Adobe Reader just to open and read PDF files, odds are Adobe Reader Lite will do the trick. The application loads in no time at all and takes up significantly less storage space than the full version of Adobe Reader. On the other hand, Adobe Reader light still seems to eat up about 3 times the RAM and 7 times the disk space of Foxit Reader. But it might be worth keeping around in case you find a document that doesn't load properly in Foxit.
[via
gHacks]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michel Merlin said 12:09PM on 2-07-2008
Peter Wed 26 Dec 2007 17:09, for one of the main reasons why people are leaving Adobe Reader, please see http://forums.techguy.org/all-other-software/491578-adobe-reader-alternative.html#post5582899 "Adobe Reader stealth Update slowed my PC to death for a week".
Versailles, Thu 7 Feb 2008 18:05:00 +0100
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Jake said 5:03PM on 12-26-2007
For me, Foxit is too heavy on Windows, not to mention the ads. I recommend Sumatra:
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/
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Peter said 5:09PM on 12-26-2007
I don't know what everyone's problem with Acrobat Reader is. It takes about as long to open as any other app on my Pentium 4 with 1 Gig RAM. Most people aren't opening PDF files all day long so who cares if it takes a couple of seconds extra to open.
Firefox is currently sucking down 137 Megs of RAM on my system, so it's not exactly svelte either.
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Dustin said 6:50PM on 12-26-2007
For most people the difference is around 30 seconds longer using Adobe's bloated reader. Its like opening photoshop or illustrator everytime to view a silly jpg. Just stupid.
Mark said 9:53PM on 12-26-2007
Adobe Reader 8 launches in just a couple seconds on my system, I don't get why everyone whines about it either.
This isn't some top of the line computer either, it's getting pretty old now. I'll admit version 6 and 7 were horrible but they've really cleaned up the interface and fixed the performance in version 8, no complaints here anyway. If it takes 30 seconds for this to launch on your system, it's probably time to retire the 486 and get something made in the last decade.
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lladnar said 10:01PM on 12-26-2007
Preview or Safari in OSX open pdfs near instantly. I've always had trouble with adobe reader even opening pdfs.
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Anand K Gupta said 8:38AM on 12-27-2007
I have used FixIt and removed it, after I found PDF XChange Viewer http://www.pdfxviewer.com/
It load pdf files faster. It is free and has simple PDF editor / marker to boot.
I do a lot of report generation to PDF (via free PDF Printer Driver). PDFXViewer helps me a lot in using these pdf files for marking and sending others for review.
Even for simple pdf file opening and viewing, I recommend PDFXViewer.
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Mike said 8:40AM on 12-27-2007
You really should mention that although this software might be called "Adobe Reader Lite" that it is just some smuck that modified the installer and such.
Very bad thing by the way.
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Kenny said 9:14AM on 12-27-2007
Just a quick +1 for Anand K Gupta's comments.
If you haven't tried PDF XChange yet you don't know what you're missing!
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thiel said 2:05PM on 12-28-2007
Thanks for PDF XChange Mr Gupta! It's brilliant! I've been using Foxit since it's birth, but I could never get text quality as good as Adobe - this meets that target and adds so much more.
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Aalaap said 8:33AM on 12-28-2007
I like this new trend of "Lite" versions being developed (by third parties) of over-bloated applications such as Nero and Adobe Reader. It's possibly illegal, but it's really a plea by the users to the original software developers for what they really want and need.
Having said that, I still find FoxIt faster and smaller than Adobe Reader Lite, not to mention a lot easier to find and more legal, just the way I prefer the open source InfraRecorder to Nero Lite nowadays.
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