Adobe Acrobat Reader is a powerful but space and resource hogging application which few users are going to utilize to its fullest potential. But there is an alternative and even better it is free! Foxit Reader 2.0 works just as well as Adobe Acrobat but doesn’t have the ton of plugins to load which on older and slower systems could prove fatal. CyberNet Tech News has done a nice review of the new Foxit 2.0 Reader.
In case you are wondering, this program works beautifully with Firefox and even more so when paired with the PDF Download Extension (which works with Firefox 1.5.0.X, Firefox 2.0/Bon Echo & (developmental) Firefox 3 Gran Paradiso/Minefield. Here are the steps needed to integrate Foxit with Firefox’s PDF Download Extension:
- Once PDF Download has been installed a new selection, “PDF Download – Options” will appear in your Tools Menu. Select this option.
- On the ‘General Tab’, for Default Action, select ‘Open PDF‘
- On the ‘PDF opening’ Tab, for the PDF File Opening, select ‘Use this viewer‘
- Click ‘Browse’ in Windows Explorer locate the Foxit Reader (FoxitReader.exe) and click ‘OK’
- Click ‘OK’ again to exit out of the PDF Download – Options.
Now whenever you come across a PDF File, Firefox will automatically load in the FoxIt Reader, a process which depending on your system speed with be nearly instant to a couple seconds. Note: Firefox downloads the PDF File in order to open it.
Update 09/23/07: Changed link to download page on FoxIt website
Download FoxIt Reader
