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10th February 2008

SOFTWARE REVIEW
FOXIT READER

Brian Grainger

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brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk


 

One of the essential programs on any computer is a program to read Portable Document Format (pdf) files. You might be forgiven for thinking there is only one program to do this, Adobe Acrobat Reader. However, there are alternatives, including Foxit Reader that is the subject of this review.

I have been a user of Adobe Acrobat Reader ever since I have had a PC. Even if I did not need it to read files off the Internet it would have been installed by my planetarium software, Redshift. Often, Adobe Acrobat Reader is pre-installed on new computers. Why is it then that I started to look for something else?

At the back end of 2007 I read on 'The Register' that a software vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader had been discovered that potentially allowed hackers to inject stuff on your PC. This caused me a bit of a problem on my desktop that is still running Windows 98. The last version of Adobe Acrobat Reader that would work on my machine was 5.0.5, while the latest was at version 8. I was sure Adobe would bring a fix to version 8 but there was not likely to be an update for my old version. Nevertheless, I had a potential solution to the problem. Readers of 'The Register' are never slow to barrack software they consider to be less than perfect. What was interesting about the comments to the news of the Adobe Acrobat Reader vulnerability was that many were querying why Foxit Reader was not being used instead. Until that time I had never heard of Foxit Reader.

I had been aware of alternative pdf readers, especially on the Linux platform, although I never found them as good as the Adobe product. It was time to find out about Foxit Reader.

A quick look at the web page for Foxit Reader, http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php, showed that it appeared to have many desirable features such as:

  • Small in size
  • Fast to start up
  • Allows you to add your own notes to the pdf file
  • Brings a reader of the very latest pdf standard to older versions of Windows

It looked good to me so I downloaded the 2.5MB zip file for the program and the 1.5MB pdf program manual. There is an option to download a setup file, rather than the zip file, for the technically challenged. The zip file contains one .exe file that you place in a folder of your choice. To run Foxit Reader you simply open the .exe file. You can set Foxit to be your default reader so that subsequently you can just click on a pdf file to open it in Foxit Reader. The setup program allows for the automatic creation of Start menu, Desktop and Quick Launch shortcuts, as desired. If you download the zip file these will have to be set manually.

The working .exe file is 5.5MB in size, much smaller than the Adobe Acrobat Reader footprint of 42 MB in version 6 on my laptop. Admittedly, the latter has the bulk of the size taken up with plugins that probably are rarely used.

When you open Foxit Reader for the first time it asks if you want to make it the default pdf viewer and then you are presented with a screen as seen below.

Foxit Reader screen layout is somewhat similar to Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7, which I found to be more intuitive than version 8. Most of the available toolbars are on show in the image above. The screen layout is configurable, of course. The status bar is seen at the bottom and here there is a little duplication with the toolbars. The navigation 'video' buttons are duplicated, with the additional page status information.

When you open a pdf document you notice the speed improvement over Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you repeatedly open the same document then it always opens at the point where you last closed it. A small, but useful, point when you are viewing over multiple sessions.

Soon after I got Foxit Reader I had a problem with a pdf document at work, where we have Adobe Acrobat Reader. Each page contained a company logo graphic and as I proceeded through the document it got slower and slower to scroll. By the time I got to page 55 it was hopeless. I had to give up reading it on screen. Likewise, it was not printable because it took so long to render. In desperation I turned to Foxit Reader. Scrolling still slowed up as I progressively read through the document but at least, this time, I made it to the end. This confirmed to me that Foxit outguns Adobe in speed of rendering.

Although I generally don't make notes to pdf documents, this capability of Foxit Reader is handy to have when needed. To do this with Adobe products requires the full pdf writing package, which costs money. The capability in Foxit Reader is limited. The full capability is unlocked with the paid for Foxit Reader Pro. Also, if you print a page with annotations there is an additional evaluation message printed on every modified page. This, of course, is to encourage you to purchase the Pro version which will remove the evaluation messages. They are unobtrusive though and for personal use is no problem.

I believe that the Foxit Reader is essentially the Pro version with some features locked out. Purchase of the Pro version provides an installation key will then unlock these features. The Pro version also comes with some additional software tools such as a pdf file editor.

Have I noticed any drawbacks with using Foxit reader? Just two minor niggles so far.

First, some fonts are sometimes rendered less readable than they would be with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Whether this is because Adobe has a greater range of fonts as standard I am not sure. Most of the time it is no problem.

The second niggle is that when clicking a pdf document on the web with Internet Explorer it automatically fires up Foxit Reader and displays the document, rather than asking me whether I want to save the file. Perhaps this is functionality of choosing Foxit as the default pdf reader - I have not investigated. With Adobe Acrobat Reader it is possible to independently choose not to display pdf files in Internet Explorer. Of course, one can always right click and choose 'Save Target As' to avoid this problem.

Despite these two niggles the decision was clear for me. After the first time I fired up Foxit Reader and ran my initial tests it was clear that Foxit delivered on its promises of smaller, quicker and more fully featured than anything Adobe could give me on Windows 98. In addition I did not have to worry about the Adobe software vulnerability. After that session Adobe Acrobat Reader was removed from my machine and Foxit Reader took its place.

Since that time it has been reported that Adobe Systems are now thinking of tying in advertising with reading pdf files through Adobe Acrobat Reader. I have no desire to support a company that would do such a thing. I am glad I found Foxit Reader when I did.


 

 

 

 


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