Foxit Reader vs. Adobe reader

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Win 7, desk top and laptop…I am thinking of getting rid of Adobe reader on my computers and replacing it with Foxit Reader (free) !. Adobe is packaged everywhere, is it hard to get rid of it? 2 Does Foxit truly take the place of Adobe reader? Will all the other Adobe products continue to work well? I would like to hear from the advanced users please.

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I replaced my Adobe Reader with the free version PDF XChange Viewer [PDFXCview.exe]. Anyone making monies with PDFs probably will want the paid-for version.
For my Firefox, I added Shumway, but did not replace Flash Player or Shockwave because many websites still use them, hence I continue to update those two Adobe products.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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I replaced my Adobe Reader with the free version PDF XChange Viewer [PDFXCview.exe]. Anyone making monies with PDFs probably will want the paid-for version.
For my Firefox, I added Shumway, but did not replace Flash Player or Shockwave because many websites still use them, hence I continue to update those two Adobe products.

+1
Same here, tried Foxit but PDFx works better for me.

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Adobe is packaged everywhere, is it hard to get rid of it? 2 Does Foxit truly take the place of Adobe reader? Will all the other Adobe products continue to work well?

No, it’s not hard to get rid of Acrobat Reader… just un-install it from within Control Panel > Programs and Features.
Yes, Foxit Reader will do everything that Acrobat Reader does.
Yes, other Adobe products will continue to work as normal after Acrobat Reader is un-installed.

Hope this helps answer your questions…

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No, it’s not hard to get rid of Acrobat Reader… just un-install it from within Control Panel > Programs and Features.
Yes, Foxit Reader will do everything that Acrobat Reader does.
Yes, other Adobe products will continue to work as normal after Acrobat Reader is un-installed.

Hope this helps answer your questions…

This was not true the last time I tried Foxit – But it could have changed since then of course. The biggest differences I found were that Foxit did not include OCR, so scanned documents could be searched for text and the text would never be found, even if you could see it there yourself.

The other one that caused me problems was that PDFs that used the more advanced features of Adobe, like tables and even worse, were not supported in Foxit and the layout would be wrong, or even an error message saying it could not cope with parts of the documents.

I eventually gave in and had to go back to Reader, despite all of it’s drawbacks. Unless you deal only with older and text-only (or will not need to search them) documents, Adobe has you by the ****s it seems unfortunately and is not letting up on introducing new features constantly, to keep alternates to it’s own PDF programs at bay. If only we could persuade people not to embed things like video and tables in PDFs in the first place. It even sometimes makes printing them out a real problem.

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foxit will not sign adobe pdf files.

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I once dumped Adobe Reader for Foxit but one of my utility bills would only read in Adobe, so dumped Foxit and reinstalled Adobe.

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I too, once dumped Adobe Reader for Foxit but went back after Foxit somehow snuck in Conduit Search during an update, changing my default search plus my home page setting. Congratulations to them for this being the only time I’ve ever been stung like that. SO, after getting rid of those extras, I said “screwyou, take that”, and uninstalled Foxit. I’ll never use it again!
I think the reason I fell for Foxit in the first palce was the “bloated” Adobe talk we all read about. After going back to Adobe, I say “so what, it doesn’t make a bit of diffference, and it works fine”.

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Foxit Reader doesn’t completely replace the full functionality of Adobe Reader. That’s because AR can run program code embedded in the PDF, even though that makes it a security nightmare. I guess nobody at Adobe thought through the implications of allowing PDFs to run program code or how much the hackers would love that… uh… “feature”. Infected PDFs are one of the most common vectors for getting your computer infected, so I don’t allow anything Adobe on my computer unless it’s running in a VM or an alternate, multibooted partition.

Foxit can read typical PDFs as well as Adobe or any of the other alternatives. Where you’ll run into trouble, though, is with PDFs created by companies that insist on using that ability to run program code.

For instance, my daughter lives in Wisconsin and the State has everyone submit their tax returns online. She told me she was required to use Adobe Reader to file online–Foxit wouldn’t do.

Unfortunately, some of the worst offenders seem to be financial companies, who you’d think would know better. Their attitude seems to be that it’s insecure sending a complete PDF to you, so they instead send you a PDF file that’s nothing more than a “shell” with nothing in it, but when you open the PDF it’s programmed to pull data across the internet and build the PDF on your computer in real time.

So in order to secure your investment statements they require you to compromise your computer by installing the Adobe stuff. That’s like saying, “We don’t trust sending a paper bank statement because somebody could steal it out of your mailbox, so we want you to leave your back door open and we’ll drop by and leave your statement on your kitchen table.”

(Note: if you do decide to try Foxit, make sure you do a “custom” install and untick a few boxes or you’ll end up with some unwanted, bundled junkware.)

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Foxit Reader can ‘run program code that’s embedded in the PDF’ but, for safety, that functionality is turned off by default (called ‘Safe Reading Mode’).
39233-foxit_reader
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Foxit Reader hasn’t included bundled 3rd-party apps (‘bloatware’) since version 6… but version 7 does include Foxit Cloud which itself may be unwanted.

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Foxit Reader can ‘run program code that’s embedded in the PDF’ but, for safety, that functionality is turned off by default (called ‘Safe Reading Mode’).

Nope, there seems to be more to it than just javascript. Been there, done that. Many times. There are simply some PDFs that will not render with anything other than Adobe Reader.

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RickC, do you know if PDF XChange Viewer [PDFXCview.exe] can also run PDF program code, ie for income tax purposes?

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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Roland, I don’t use PDF XChange Viewer but its web page shows “Full Javascript Engine included”… so I guess the answer is yes, PDF XChange Viewer can run program code.

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I’ve replaced Adobe back in the Windows XP era with Foxit reader and have not looked back since.
My needs are more simplistic with just reading, occasional creation, but mostly reading.

If all you need is a pdf reader, then Foxit will do just fine with considerably less bloat, at least that was my original intention away from Adobe all those many years ago. Besides that, it seemed they (Adobe) were always having issue with their code.
Even with Foxit you’ll need to be attendant to the install process, because it will want to install “other” crap/properties you might not want to use. (some of it is downright sneaky, especially for n00bs)

Both have paid versions, but they will be associated with far more complex usage.

So it all really depends on exactly what you are doing with pdf documents and what your needs are.
And you really ought to know what your needs are, especially if they are complex.
Typically I’ll associate Adobe with a more professional type user-base.

See if this helps answer any of your questions:
Adobe Reader vs. Foxit (by TweakHound)

Just because I have long ago moved away from Adobe reader, I wouldn’t by any means discount it completely, especially
if I come to developing specific needs in the future. Adobe is a huge company that is continually updating and developing
it’s product line.

Cautions with Windows 8 & 8.1:
Get ride of the stupid start screen PDF reader, it’s just too stupid simple to do anything with.
You’ll also need to configure Foxit to be your default reader in more than just the Foxit properties itself.
I don’t know about Adobe NOW, but it always tended to be a bit more aggressive in defaulting to it.

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See if this helps answer any of your questions:
Adobe Reader vs. Foxit (by TweakHound)

Sorry but the article in November 2010 by TweakHound is more than 4 years old and refers to an earlier version of Foxit Reader which did indeed include the ASK Toolbar which also changed your Search and Home pages.

Even worse, Foxit then compounded this behaviour in Feb 2014 by including 4 different PUPs, described by Malwarebytes as:

[*]PUP.Optional.Conduit.A
[*]PUP.Optional.SearchProtect.A
[*]PUP.Optional.SweetPacks.A
[*]PUP.Optional.OpenCandy.A

See Does Foxit Reader free 6.1.4.0217 have malware? for more info.

As one can imagine, this caused such a furore that Foxit removed both the ASK Toolbar and the other PUPs.

The current version of Foxit Reader – version 7 – does not include any 3rd-party PUPs.

Although I have Foxit Reader installed on several PCs and laptops, to double-check this statement I’ve just downloaded and installed v7.0.6.1126 of Foxit Reader direct from the Foxit website. I carried out a Complete installation (rather than Custom) using InCTRL5, an installation monitoring program.

The installation included 26 tiny ‘adverts’ which rotate in the toolbar within Foxit Reader itself. These adverts are for Foxit features and products, not external suppliers. If you’re bothered by them… just go into Preferences and turn them off! If you want to save a little space, just delete them. (If you want to save even more space, delete the additional skins.)

1. Choose File > Preferences > General.
2. Uncheck Show Advertisement.
39241-Foxit-Reader
Click to enlarge
(While you are at it, you may wish to also uncheck Show Start Page.)

The Foxit Reader installer also installs Foxit Cloud and has no options or checkboxes to prevent the installation of this add-on. 😡 Instead, you have to un-install it after the installation of Foxit Reader. By default, Foxit Reader includes auto-updating… which re-installs Foxit Cloud. :mad::mad::mad:

More questions about Foxit Reader? Try the FAQ.

If anyone is interested, I’ve attached a text file of the InCTRL5 installation monitoring report.

Hope this helps clear up some misunderstandings…

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Corel has a new one, pdfFusion, which is quite capable, and was on sale for $30 US. Let me know if you try it, Pls.

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Corel has a new one, pdfFusion, which is quite capable, and was on sale for $30 US. Let me know if you try it, Pls.

I won’t be trying it, 3 stars from over 300 ratings on Amazon means it’s unlikely to surpass free alternatives for most people. There’s also a warning in the distribution of the Amazon ratings, beware when the number of 1-star ratings is nearly the same as for 5 stars.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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A little bit more bout Foxit Cloud, you have to create an account before you can use it, so it’s inert until you do. You can uninstall it using your favourite uninstaller, which will remove it from the menu. But as you say it reinstalls when Foxit is updated. I’ve not bothered to remove it because of this. However, I keep an eye on what Foxit tries to install, just like any other software install/upgrade I download. But I understand that some may find it intrusive.

As a side issue, does anyone know if there are any advantages/disadvantages in using Foxit Cloud (assuming you’re happy using the Cloud in the first place)?

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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T.K – I have no idea when it changed but Foxit Reader does include OCR, either using the Search tool (1) in the toolbar (where you can filter what to look for) or using Tools > Search to use the advanced/multi search (2). As you can see in the screenshot, Foxit Reader has highlighted the first of the ‘found’ items (3).
39277-foxit_ocr
Click to enlarge

I’m using the latest version of Foxit Reader and it appears to have no problems creating PDFs with tables (a), text (b) nor text boxes (d) from an MS Word .docx file but – granted – does have problems with MS Word’s SmartArt hybrid text/graphic objects (c).
39279-foxit_render
Click to enlarge

Note that this was a quick test of creating a PDF from Foxit Reader, not a test of displaying a PDF created with Adobe Acrobat. I don’t have Adobe Acrobat (except for the ancient, now free, Acrobat 8) so am unable to test further.

(As a matter of interest I’ve just filed a ‘trouble ticket’ (bug report) this morning with Foxit about its latest Reader after finding a reproducible error creating new PDFs from .TXT files.)

I agree with your point about Adobe “not letting up on introducing new features constantly, to keep alternates to it’s own PDF programs at bay”. That’s business for you. 🙂

Hope this helps…

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I am currently recommending the Foxit reader to all of my clients who do not have heavy PDF processing needs. The simple reason: Foxit Reader includes the Foxit PDF Printer as part of its install, and this is a perfectly capable PDF generator for anyone needing a basic PDF printer.

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Gave up on Foxit Reader because of the unwanted extras they started including. Started using a bloatware-free app on our PCs and laptop called Slim PDF Reader. It’s tiny – about 1.5MB. If all you want to do is read PDFs this is a great option. The maker also has some other free PDF apps shown on this link. Slim PDF Reader is also on this page about half way down the list:
http://www.investintech.com/resources/freetools/

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Gave up on Foxit Reader because of the unwanted extras they started including.

What unwanted extras? There’s only one – Foxit Cloud. Admittedly it’s a nuisance but it’s the only extra included.

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What unwanted extras? There’s only one – Foxit Cloud. Admittedly it’s a nuisance but it’s the only extra included.

I dumped Adobe for Foxit years ago, but then dumped Foxit when it became indistinguishable from Adobe in resource usage and began offering to install piggybacked crapware. Maybe the Foxit folks came to their senses, but I switched to the free version of Nitro Reader and haven’t looked back. Like it a lot. I would certainly recommend that anyone investigating free PDF readers check it out.

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What unwanted extras? There’s only one – Foxit Cloud. Admittedly it’s a nuisance but it’s the only extra included.

. That situation obviously changes from time to time. When Foxit installed Conduit Search on me several months ago, it was more than just a nuisance. Ya know, this whole thing where “free software” installs PUPs is a huge problem for many people and an annoyance for the rest of us. Most of us know what I mean when we have to clean out somebody’s computer that has a dozen or more of these things. One wonders what the point of installing these PUPs is; if it isn’t spyware, then who would use this garbage and for what benefit to the creator? One thing’s for sure; “free” isn’t always free, and a real danger comes with most of them. The other thing we must realize is that people don’t create software to simply give it away. Sometimes there is a soft sell to upgrade, but too many seem to rely on accepting money to include PUPs.

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When Foxit installed Conduit Search on me several months ago

Seriously? Foxit Reader hasn’t included Conduit since Feb 2014 in v6.1.4.0217, i.e. a year ago. I guess Foxit realised pretty quickly what a mistake that was. Current version is v7.0.6.1126.

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Seriously? Foxit Reader hasn’t included Conduit since Feb 2014 in v6.1.4.0217, i.e. a year ago. I guess Foxit realised pretty quickly what a mistake that was. Current version is v7.0.6.1126.

For me, that was an unexcusable mistake. All I could think of when I was uninstalling Foxit was they could go to hell. What got me really p’d about it is, it was the only time I’ve ever had a PUP install. They must have hidden it well.

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I dumped Adobe Reader years ago (Win 95 maybe?) because it’s bloatware. I currently use (free) Nitro Reader 3 for everything, except it won’t read epub books, so I use (free) Foxit Reader strictly for those. I was using Foxit for everything but found it couldn’t do what I wanted without a lot of adaptations in how I was used to doing the same tasks.

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Another way to check out Foxit with low risk and impact is to get it as part of Portable Apps (PA): http://portableapps.com/

This applies to a lot of other popular software, too, all of which run without “installing” (relatively speaking, for Windows I guess – I use Linux/FOSS most of the time with software installed using methods common to them such as apt/synaptic for Debian based distros such as Ubuntu and its variants).

Start the PA launcher (if you do not install it to launch automatically) when you want to use any of the software products, otherwise it, and they, stay “out of the way”.

I have made it my practice to just install PA on a flash card on several Win 8 tablets that don’t have a lot of internal SSD storage to keep that as clear as possible for all the usual temp junk and patch updates files. I have settled on a collection of useful apps besides Foxit, including SeaMonkey (the updated Mozilla version of the old Netscape Navigator browser/email client/HTML editor – shares most of the current, equivalent Firefox internal browser code with the more classic Netscape UI), AbiWord for lightweight word processing, Gnumeric for lightweight spreadsheet, 7Zip, and one or 2 others I am forgetting at the moment.

Actually, after the first such installation to a card, I can just copy the PA directory and launcher program to other cards for quick use on other PC’s with minimal registry impact, and startup effort. I just create a desktop shortcut for the launcher exe.

PA’s site has a very large array of popular Windows-compatible software packages in “portable” form to choose from for your choice of “mix and match” app suites. They seem to be kept fairly current (at least I get PA updates to SeaMonkey about as often as my more standard installations on both Windows and Linux).

HTH

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I second rokky’s notion of using Portable Apps. I use as many of them as I can instead of the regular “installed” versions. My flash drive includes the portable versions of the Chrome browser, Firefox, Pale Moon (a Firefox replica), Thunderbird, Skype, Filezilla, Teamviewer, KeePass, Audacity, IrfanView, CDEx, Foxit, PDF-XChange, 7-Zip, CCleaner, Aus defrag, and more. I use various computers depending on whether I’m at home or on the road, and I love being able to carry a flash drive with all my email, bookmarks, browser extensions and configurations already setup, no matter where I go.

I’ll add, though, that you don’t need to install the “Portable Apps” launcher at all. All the PA launcher does is create a menu for launching whatever portable programs you install. Instead, just download the desired portable program from portableapps.com (e.g., “FoxitReaderPortable_7.0.6.1126_Rev_2.paf.exe”) to your desktop and run it. It will create a folder on your desktop with the self-contained portable version of the program. Open the folder and double-click the executable (e.g., “FoxitReaderPortable.exe”).

The beauty of the portable versions is you can move that self-contained folder from your desktop to anywhere you want without having to change any configuration settings. Move it to a flash drive or external drive and it launches the same way: just open the folder and double-click the exe. (For convenience, you can create shortcuts to the various apps and put them on your desktop, if you wish.)

Other advantages of the portable versions include the ease of backing up an entire program just by copying its folder, and the opportunity to keep multiple versions–or multiple configurations–of the same program just by copying the folder.

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… Pale Moon (a Firefox replica),

Pale Moon’s never been a clone of Firefox, it’s now considered a fork.

My requirements for a pdf reader are just that – a reader, I dumped Adobe many years ago and Foxit several years ago, Sumatra does it for me.

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I use a number of PDF tools all under the Protable Apps umbrella. But previous poster pointed out that you do not even need the suite although I find it useful for a flash drive based install as it also is able to look for updates.

With respects to PDF I use: SumatraPDF (leightweight display), Foxit Reader, Diff PDF (Comparison), PDF X-Change Viewer (edit, esp. connotate and comment files), PDF TK Builder (merging, watermarking etc.). I also use FreePDF for print-to-PDF purposes, note that this needs a local install as it creates a virtual printer device. Most of these since WINXP, currently all on Win7 Prof. 64-bit and Win 8.1 Prof. 64 bit respectively.

I have not come across any single file that none of those tools could open or display and am able to do a medium level of file and content manipulation for personal matters. My company also has freePDF licensed on their devices.
For security reasons I turn of JavaScript and the like wherever possible.

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I use Foxit (free) nearly everyday for all my PDF needs including scanning into PDF format. I removed Adobe Reader at least 8 years ago and have never had a single problem reading a PDF document whether on XP, Win7, or Win8.

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…and they were not the only ones who included search conduit and other things similar.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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For the OP, imo you’re looking at the two worst PDF reader choices. Of the two, I would pick Foxit every time over Adobe–but I advise you to avoid both.

Adobe has been a bad choice for well over a decade due to the amount of load it can put on a computer [aka bloat]. In recent years it has been one of the top programs to uninstall and avoid due to its continual vulnerability to malware attacks. If for some reason you must use Adobe Reader, then make sure to update it regularly–Adobe issues security fixes monthly, and occasionally more often for critical flaws, iirc.

I used Adobe Reader happily for about a decade [mid-90s to mid-2000s], and only looked for an alternative when it became too unwieldy and unstable. I picked Foxit from the pack back then–it was light, fast and worked fine as a reader.

3-4 years later I needed extra functionality in my PDF reader, and chose PDF Xchange Viewer for its good performance and nice set of editing etc features–it’s the reader I still use today, although I no longer have the extra needs.

I don’t need the hassle of wondering which stunt Foxit will come up with next, when it will be, what damage it might cause. I could maybe give them a pass on one stupid PUP decision, but they just keep on PUPping–adding in last year’s reports of similar customer exploitation on iPhone makes Foxit Reader a fully grown DOG for me. Gizmo’s article [linked below] currently says this about Foxit crapware: “The exact nature of these unwanted components is changed regularly.”

I haven’t used any other readers because PDF Xchange Viewer has given me no reason to look elsewhere. They have one PUP, so opt out of installing the Tracker browser toolbar during install.

OP might find Gizmo’s review useful:
Best Free Non-Adobe PDF Reader
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-non-adobe-pdf-reader.htm

Avoid bundled crapware
There are a number of helpful programs to help you avoid PUP in downloads. I use Unchecky and it seems to work well–I download a lot of software, and rarely have to untick stuff.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Gizmo’s article [linked below] currently says this about Foxit crapware: “The exact nature of these unwanted components is changed regularly.”

I think it’s only fair to point out that the article by Jojo Yee on Gizmo was published 8 months ago (3rd July 2014) and reviewed a version of Foxit Reader (v6.1.2.1224) that was not even current at the time the review was published.
39455-foxit-review
Click to enlarge

Looking at the versions history on OldApps.com shows that the version of Foxit Reader that was reviewed was 9 iterations ago.
39456-foxit-versions

I’ll repeat post #19… the current version of Foxit Reader has only one potentially unwanted extra, i.e. Foxit Cloud. Admittedly it’s a nuisance but it’s the only extra included.

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That’s fair enough Rick, but doesn’t work for me. The track record of Foxit for some years has been “The exact nature of these unwanted components is changed regularly.” I’m not prepared to babysit a sneaky software supplier when there are other options available which don’t leave a bad taste.

PS the iPhone episode I mentioned was only 6-7 months ago, see post and comments at InfoSec. So Foxit show no evidence of mending their ways yet. Give me a top management change and 2-3 years of consistent non-abusive behavior and I’ll regard them as a viable contender again.

But that’s just me, I hope Foxit works well for you, the program itself seems to be good.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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this is what I like…lots of response and strong opinions…helps guys like me get educated…everybody feel free to weigh in but…you know…keep it clean Eugene…

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Will dare to give one more mention to a small, simple and malware-free program called Slim PDF Reader. This program is a very small download (about 1.5MB) and contains no bundled bloatware or other unwanted extras. It has a tiny footprint in your system. It opens quickly and reads PDFs. It has a Search/Find feature and you can, of course, print any PDF page or an entire document. It’s small size proves that tightly written code can be very concise and very efficient. It’s available from CNET’s Download.com or from the maker’s website here: http://www.investintech.com/resources/freetools/slimpdfreader/

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