Replacing Adobe Reader--Foxit, Sumatra, or something else?

Discussion in 'other security issues & news' started by conceptualclarity, May 15, 2014.

?

Best free Adobe Reader alternative?

  1. Sumatra

    36.8%
  2. Foxit

    10.5%
  3. Something else

    52.6%
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  1. conceptualclarity

    conceptualclarity Registered Member

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    I understand that Adobe Reader is very vulnerable to the cyber-criminals. I also really dislike how heavy and sluggish it is.

    So what is my best alternative? I want something that's
    1. more secure than Adobe
    2. much lighter and faster
    3. as good as Adobe in terms of allowing one to highlight and annotate
    4. free
    5. I want to be able to copy highlighted text to my clipboard. It seems like I used to be able to do that with Adobe.
     
  2. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    I used this for a while after I dumped Adobe Reader myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evince But it was around the time Firefox started supporting .pdf so I just started using Firefox instead.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software I'd try to get something open source, and then for added security you could just lock it down with EMET: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/06/windows-security-101-emet-4-0/

    I personally think just using anything but Adobe Reader will be a night and day difference.
     
  3. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Foxit or PDF-Xchange Viewer.
     
  4. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    PDFXchange works very well for me.
     
  5. moontan

    moontan Registered Member

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    PDFXchange is the fastest I have tried.
    it's easily seen while scrolling through large documents.

    I don't know about security though.
     
  6. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    The user can choose whether or not they want it integrated into the browser during its install. If it's not integrated with the browsers, the most direct ways of attacking it are eliminated. Beyond that restricting its internet access, system permissions with EMET or HIPS, running it in a sandbox, or a combination of these would mitigate most attacks.
     
  7. ichito

    ichito Registered Member

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  8. davews

    davews Registered Member

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    PDFXchange Reader - have also tried their PDFXchange Editor which is targetted to replace it but it is almost as bloated as Adobe. Have used Foxit in the past but that is also now quite bloated.
     
  9. ArchiveX

    ArchiveX Registered Member

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    Sumatra
     
  10. subhrobhandari

    subhrobhandari Registered Member

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    Sumatra, been using for years.
     
  11. guest

    guest Guest

  12. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    I have both Sumatra and Foxit installed but Sumatra is the viewer associated with pdf. I use Foxit only occasionally, when I encounter a PDF that manages to slow Sumatra to a crawl (believe it or not, it is possible - usually with a very large PDF).
     
  13. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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    I use PDF-XChange because I love its customizable UI
     
  14. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    I dumped Adobe Reader some years ago, and have used PDF-Exchange ever since.
     
  15. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Same here, I used Foxit before, but it had problem with filling PDF documents and especially with diacritic used in my language.
     
  16. conceptualclarity

    conceptualclarity Registered Member

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    Thank you all. A good many responses.
     
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