Which is a good, free PDF reader for Vista ultimate?


Recommended Posts

Adobe Reader is a pretty good once, and if you have a decent graphics card it will render the pages using it instead of the CPU.

Ugh.

Adobe Reader is terrible.

If you have any PDF that is more than a few pages, with just a few graphics on it, simply compare scrolling down in Foxit and Adobe. Foxit is so much faster at it. I had Adobe installed a few weeks ago, and not Foxit, and was scrolling through a PDF of some scanned solutions from a professor, and it was so ****ing slow.. I installed Foxit, and the problem vanished.

Adobe Reader 8. It's bloated but opens quickly and works. I despise it's Auto-Update function you cannot kill though but then I'd have it without Adobe Reader as I use Photoshop Elements which uses the same Updater.

Frankly though I could just as well use Adobe Reader 5 or 6. From what I can tell they've never changed anything of any substance. Version 5 still opens PDF files just fine.

Then again if Foxit leaner I'm interested. For a ruddy PDF Reader a 20Mb install (Adobe Reader 8) is absurd. I hate it when programs which used to be lean get bloated BUT add nothing of any value.

* Real Player - Evil software. I'm sure Satan wrote it. I refuse to put it anywhere near my PC and use Real Alternative (which I also haven't currently got installed).

* QuickTime Player - Annoying. I actually use this as I like it's Conversion functions but it is too bloated. I've considered going over to QuickTime Alternative.

* Nero Burning Rom - Version 6 was lean and only 30Mb. Version 7 is exactly the same (except it offers HD support) but jumped to 175Mb. I cannot see remotely why? I'd use V6 if it worked on Vista.

* Windows Vista - I don't want and will never use: Windows DVD Maker, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Calendar, Windows Contacts, Windows Mail yet I wasn't asked during install if I want them or not and have to have them. I can see worth in including Windows Defender though, even if I don't use it.

I use Outlook 2007 and both Windows Movie Maker/DVD Maker are utter rubbish compared to other software out there. At least Windows Messenger and Netmeeting are no longer included compulsory.

I use Acrobat Reader, personally. It can be slow, but you can disable some of the plug-ins to make it faster.

http://software.bootblock.co.uk/?id=adobereaderspeedup

Thanks for that I'll give it ago.

I would have preferred Foxit if it wasn't for its subpar antialiasing compared to Acrobat Reader, at least last time I checked it out.

Would the GDI+ add-on fix this? -

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/addons.htm

I tend to just use Adobe Reader since the newer version is much quicker than the past few, and Foxit lacked a few features last time I tried it. Tho' I was a Foxit user for a while.

More importantly, free? I wasn't aware there were any PDF viewers that were not free.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Firefox 152.0.1 by Razvan Serea Firefox is a fast, full-featured Web browser. It offers great security, privacy, and protection against viruses, spyware, malware, and it can also easily block pop-up windows. The key features that have made Firefox so popular are the simple and effective UI, browser speed and strong security capabilities. Firefox has complete features for browsing the Internet. It is very reliable and flexible due to its implemented security features, along with customization options. Firefox includes pop-up blocking, tab-browsing, integrated Google search, simplified privacy controls, a streamlined browser window that shows you more of the page than any other browser and a number of additional features that work with you to help you get the most out of your time online. Firefox key features Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) – Blocks trackers, cookies, cryptominers, and fingerprinters by default. Private Browsing Mode – Deletes history, cookies, and temporary files when closed. Lightweight & Fast Performance – Optimized memory usage with efficient page loading. Cross-Platform Sync – Sync bookmarks, passwords, history, and open tabs across devices. Customizable Interface – Toolbars, themes, and extensions can be tailored to user needs. Strong Privacy Controls – Options to manage cookies, permissions, and site data easily. Reader Mode – Strips away clutter for distraction-free reading. Pocket Integration – Save and read articles offline with Pocket built into Firefox. Picture-in-Picture (PiP) – Watch videos in a floating window while multitasking. Extensions & Add-ons – Vast library for productivity, security, and personalization. Built-in PDF Viewer – No need for external software to view PDFs. Firefox Monitor – Alerts users if their email is part of a known data breach. Multi-Account Containers – Isolate browsing sessions (e.g., work, personal, shopping). Performance & Resource Efficiency – Uses fewer system resources than some competitors. Open Source & Community-Driven – Transparent development with global contributions. Firefox 152.0.1 fixes: Fixed frequent crashes affecting users with Intel Raptor Lake processors. (Bug 2039575) Fixed an issue on macOS where choosing a PDF option, such as "Save as PDF", from the system print dialog would send the job to your printer instead of saving a file. (Bug 2047850) Download: Firefox 64-bit | Firefox 32-bit | ARM64 | ~70.0 MB (Freeware) Download: Firefox for MacOS | 146.0 MB View: Firefox Home Page | Release Notes Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Zed 1.7.2 has landed with updated OpenCode models, bug fixes and other improvements by David Uzondu Zed 1.7.2 recently landed on the stable release channel, bringing a host of AI-related features including automatic context compaction and settings-based skill management, along with other things like better Markdown preview rendering and custom git commands in the graph view. Starting with the AI stuff, the developers introduced "/compact", a command that basically summarizes your conversation history on demand. This tool prevents your active chat window from hitting token limits by compressing older parts of the dialogue into a brief overview. In addition to that, the team relocated skill management to the settings UI, improving how the application communicates errors regarding those skills, and updated the OpenCode model roster to support DeepSeek V4 Flash, MiniMax M3, Qwen 3.7 Plus, and Nemotron 3 Ultra Free. External agent users can also monitor context window cost metrics and delete individual sessions directly from their history. Right-clicking ref labels in the git graph now opens a context menu that runs different actions against selected targets, kind of how VS Code does it. Here are some of the bug fixes this new release brings: The active agent fails to auto-select when creating a new git worktree. A scrollbar unexpectedly appears on wrapped code blocks in the agent chat. Collapse indicators for project headers appear when performing sidebar searches. Bracketed ellipsis title prefixes fail to show the ellipsis icon properly. Project icons render incorrectly in the recent projects picker. Diff hunk controls appear inside non-editable commit view multibuffers. The software update button hangs indefinitely on the downloading stage. Restoring an agent terminal in a remote project triggers a sudden crash. Splitting a pane that contains an active commit view causes a crash. Linux Wayland freezes when trying to read the clipboard from laggy external apps. Zed is a "newish" code editor trying to break the massive stronghold VS Code has on the developer community. Funny enough, the editor was created by former GitHub employees who worked on the Atom text editor (which Microsoft killed in 2022, several years after it bought GitHub). The project officially hit version 1.0 back in April, introducing platform parity for Windows and Linux alongside deep support for DeepSeek-V4-Pro.
    • 26H2 absolutely will support ARM Windows just not on devices that came with 26H1. This is evident by the fact I am running 26H2, which on my MacBook Neo and Surface Pro 12 (inch), within a VM.
    • Mp3tag 3.35 by Razvan Serea Mp3tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit metadata (ID3, Vorbis Comments and APE) of common audio formats. It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more. The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs. Mp3tag supports the following audio formats: Advanced Audio Coding (aac) Free Lossless Audio Codec (flac) Monkeys Audio (ape) Mpeg Layer 3 (mp3) MPEG-4 (mp4 / m4a / m4b / iTunes compatible) Musepack (mpc) Ogg Vorbis (ogg) OptimFROG (ofr) OptimFROG DualStream (ofs) Speex (spx) Toms Audio Kompressor (tak) True Audio (tta) Windows Media Audio (wma) WavPack (wv) Mp3tag 3.35 changelog: This version introduces a new Files options page, enhanced toolbar customization, support for RF64 WAV files, improved Discogs and MusicBrainz tag sources, and many other improvements and fixes. See the Release Notes for more details. Download: Mp3tag 64-bit | 5.7 MB (Freeware) Download: Mp3tag 32-bit | 5.2 MB Link: Mp3tag Homepage | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • The FIFA World Cup is not US centric.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      hhgygy earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      AMV earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      AMV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Collaborator
      ryansurfer98 went up a rank
      Collaborator
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      523
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      78
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      72
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!