Foxit Reader 3.0 build 1222

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on December 08, 2008

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 3.0 kills the bloat and throws in some useful features, such as multimedia support and content-sharing options, while still allowing you to quickly access your PDFs.

The interface mimics Adobe's, so you won't have to change your reading habits. In our test, the text readability was similar. The small program starts surprisingly fast compared with Adobe. 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. Recent updates include fixing the hyperlink problem, multimedia support, printing highlighted-only sections, and tabbed PDF browsing, so you can read multiple PDFs simultaneously and with ease. Overall, unless you're tied to Adobe we strongly recommend this freeware competitor.

Publisher's description

From Foxit Software :

The following is a list of compelling advantages of Foxit Reader: Incredibly small: The download size of Foxit Reader is just a fraction of Acrobat Reader 20 M size. Breezing-fast: When you run Foxit Reader, it launches instantly without any delay. You are not forced to view an annoying splash window displaying company logo, author names, etc. Annotation tool: Foxit Reader allows you to draw graphics, highlight text, type text and make notes on a PDF document and then print out or save the annotated document. Save fillable forms after filling them out so you can continue anytime. Text converter: You may convert the whole PDF document into a simple text file. High security and privacy: Foxit Reader highly respects the security and privacy of users and will never connect to the Internet without users' permission while other PDF readers often silently connect.

Version 3.0 build 1120 adds enticing multimedia design, attachment panel, thumbnail panel, layout panel, Metric unit support.

6.Auto-scrolling with Middle Mouse Button.

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