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The PDF format is definitely an industry standard for many documents, especially soft-copies of manuals that are distributed online. While Mac users (like myself) need not worry about opening and reading these PDF documents (since Mac OS X comes with the software Preview which is able to open both pictures and PDF files), Windows users are often stuck with having to download the Adobe Reader which is often slow and buggy since it takes up quite a lot of system resources for a program that's just used to open documents. Thankfully, there's now an alternative to the Adobe Reader: Foxit Reader, a free PDF reader for the Windows platform.

Despite the somewhat strange name, Foxit is actually a really good piece of software. It does one thing only: read PDF files of course, but it does that job pretty darn well. For starters, the installation file which you have to download is only around 2mb. As compared to Adobe Reader's installation file, which is 20mb, you'll be able to download Foxit Reader much faster. Obviously, a small installation file translates into an extremely lightweight program unlike the Adobe Reader. You'll immediately notice the difference in speed between Foxit and Adobe Reader the first time you run the program. Compared to Adobe Reader, Foxit is blazingly fast. When you open a PDF file, it almost immediately pops up (the speed depends on your computer of course) and you don't need to stare at a splash screen like the one found in Adobe Reader.

Once open, Foxit Reader takes up a lot lesser system resources as well, being a much more lightweight program. As long as your computer isn't too old, you should be able to scroll through most PDF files pretty smoothly. The search function also works faster as compared to Adobe Reader, allowing you to search for a particular word or phrase extremely quickly. All these features allow you to quickly browse through PDF files using Foxit instead of constantly having to wait for Adobe Reader to catch up with your actions. It has a standard PDF viewer layout, with all the pages listed at the side for easy reference and has most of the features you'd come to expect from such a program.

Of course, Foxit doesn't just display PDF files. There are several annotation tools available that allow you to make notes on PDF files. You can draw graphics, highlight text or add your own, then save or print out your edited PDF to keep. These tools will obviously come in very handy for many people who wish to make comments on a certain portion of a PDF file. If necessary, Foxit will also allow you to convert an entire PDF file into a simple text file so that you can easily manipulate the text, not that it's hard to manipulate it within Foxit in the first place. Best of all, Foxit is completely free to download for personal, non-commercial use. While some might be worried about any spyware or virus being included in the installation file, rest assured that there's no such thing in there (I've checked that out for myself).

There really isn't much else to say about Foxit Reader, after all it's just a PDF reader. However, I definitely recommend that everyone switch to using Foxit instead of Adobe Reader to open PDF files because it's a lot more reliable and stable. Furthermore, being a freeware program, there really isn't any excuse for you to not get this program now.

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(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
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