- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98
- Date added: September 18, 2006
- Total Downloads: 1,494,521
- Downloads last week: 12,322
- See full specifications
A newer version of Foxit PDF Reader is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 774 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
To put it gently, Adobe Reader is a real pain in the hindquarters.
It's monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need. Foxit PDF Reader 2.0 omits these widgets and throws in some neat features, such as annotation tools, while still allowing you to read PDF documents.
The interface mimics Adobe's, so you won't have to change your reading habits. In our test, the text readability wasn't much inferior to Acrobat's. The 1.6MB program starts surprisingly fast compared to Acrobat. You might need to fiddle a bit to get it to work with your Internet browser, but you can find help on Foxit's support forums. It's a nice touch that it opens PDFs from the Internet in their own Foxit window, instead of sucking resources from within the browser.
Foxit's biggest flaw in the old version was hogging memory and that has been corrected. We did find it incredibly irritating that URL hyperlinks were unclickable, and that some features were secretly blocked in the evaluation copy.
Publisher's description
From Foxit Software :Foxit PDF Reader is an alternative viewer/reader for PDF documents. Foxit PDF Reader is only 1.5MB to download and doesn't need lengthy installation (just download, unzip, and run). It works with all types of PDF documents you might have, with high display quality. It supports different languages, including most Asian languages. You can zoom in/out or rotate page display, copy text information to other applications, search text in PDF documents, or print PDF documents.
Version 2 adds an annotation-selection tool, a Foxit Library add-on, support for JavaScript, better form handling, and PDF conversions.
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User reviews of Foxit PDF Reader 2
- Average user rating: 4.3 stars out of 774 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 39 user reviewsSee all 39 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
7 out of 7 people found this review helpful
Version: Foxit PDF Reader 2
"Lightweight and speedy alternative to Adobe Reader"
Pros: Maybe I'm too picky, but it always griped me having to install a slow and humongous application like Adobe Reader (over 65 meg on my PC), just in order to _read_ the occasional PDF. The download alone can be intimidating for those with less-than-speedy internet connections.
Foxit is a sub-2 meg download, and once installed is a fraction the size of Adobe. (With the optional Asian font and Java support, Foxit is just over 8 meg installed on my PC.) It does everything I need it to do, including PDF forms now, and printing might actually be faster than with Adobe.
Overall, Foxit suits my purposes well enough, and without all that overhead demanded by Adobe.
Cons: Foxit still doesn't work quite right with Firefox. Getting it to open PDF windows in a Firefox tab takes manually copying DLLs, and even then, it locks up more often than not. As-is, it will open files in a new instance of Foxit. I actually prefer that, but some people will not.
Also, DDE doesn't seem to work properly, another persistent problem left over from earlier versions. Double-clicking a PDF file opens a whole new instance of the reader, instead of a just new window.
These bugs give Foxit Reader a somewhat unfinished, even amateurish feel that will make it unappealing to some, especially novices. I like Foxit and use it, but I generally recommend it only to those who are somewhat PC-savvy.
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2 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: Foxit PDF Reader 2
Pros: does what adobe reader does but is faster and takes up a lot less space than adobe. adobe reader: 65+mbs installed vs foxit reader: 5mbs installed
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: Foxit PDF Reader 2
Pros: Great program, lots of features, and its free!
Cons: None
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Foxit PDF Reader 2
Pros: Very small, compared to Adobe. Speedy to load.
Cons: The commenting and annotation features cost forty bucks. In its unregistered form, it puts evaluation marks on the file when you save it.
It doesn't render some PDFs properly. Colors and fonts are displayed incorrectly.
The search function doesn't work on some PDFs. On one very long document, Adobe Reader correctly found a particular search string 89 times, while Foxit didn't find it at all.
While only a fraction the size of Adobe Reader in installed program size, it consumes about twice the RAM in operation.
With each version of Adobe Reader more rediculously bloated than the last, I really wanted to like Foxit. Simply put, though, it's buggy and unreliable.
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3 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: Foxit PDF Reader 2
Pros: Faster and smaller than the big, giant, bloated, humongous Adobe Reader, but offers the functionality most of us need. Less than 2 megs download, versus 20 for Adobe.
Printing has worked fine for me, integration with IE is automatic. For those who just want to read the occasional PDF, or fill out PDF forms, Foxit 2 works pretty well.
Cons: To be honest, there are a number of quirks, and some outright bugs, and they've been around since version 1.2 or before.
Printing always defaults to smaller than actual size. Opening a new file from the Windows Explorer always opens a new instance of the reader, and integration with Firefox has always been a little troublesome.
To me, Foxit's advantages outweigh the negatives, but not everyone will feel the same, especially PC novices who don't know how to work around some of its limitations.
- See all 39 user reviews Write review
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