Foxit Reader 5.1

Before the advent of Adobe Reader X, there were a couple of good reasons to use a substitute for Adobe's PDF reader?it was slow to load and insecure. This inspired a cottage industry of alternate PDF viewers such as Foxit Reader and Nuance PDF Reader. While Foxit was actually a tad faster in my testing than Adobe Reader, the real reason to get this replacement is if your system resources are severely limited, as it takes up considerably less memory and disk space than the Adobe option. To that, Foxit adds a pleasing interface, the ability to share PDFs directly to Facebook or Twitter, and a slew of document markup tools.

Signup and Setup
Foxit is one of the quickest, most lightweight PDF readers when it comes to installation. Unlike Nuance Reader, you don't have to enter an email address and wait for a confirmation email to start the download. The installer download is a mere 14MB, compared with Nuance's 32MB and Adobe's 51MB. Once installed, it also takes up less memory and disk space, at 31MB, compared with 52MB for Nuance and 115MB for Adobe Reader. But even those differences will only matter to those with the most limited system resources.

Interface
The first time you run Foxit Reader, its wizard takes you through various customization options?skin theme, history saving, and reading mode (full screen or standard window frames). You can change any of this later, though, from the Preferences menu. One special point of distinction in Foxit's clean, well-designed interface is its use of tabs for multiple document view. There's also less advertising than you see in Nuance PDF Reader.

The interface uses the standard side panel that can switch between showing document page thumbnails, bookmarks, layers, comments, attachments, and signature info. There are no fewer than eleven toolbar sets, including reading, drawing, comments, forms, format and edit. I could turn off the bottom status bar showing page number and viewing options?unlike in Nuance, which always displayed this. You can split the current document into two or four windows, and did I mention that it has tabs for multiple document switching?

Using Foxit Reader
Foxit was able to correctly display the PDF Clown sample complex typesetting PDF's handwriting font, but it failed on a bunch of text on the page, rendering it as gibberish. Nuance PDF Reader couldn't even handle all the handwriting characters, and was able to render even less of the text than Foxit. If you need support for every single PDF trick, Adobe Reader X is your best bet, but most people will be fine with a stand-in like Foxit or Nuance. As with any self-respecting PDF reader, Foxit lets you snap a copy of any images in your document to the clipboard and lets you select text easily.

Markup
While Nuance PDF Reader limited me to highlighting, underlining, and crossing out text Foxit offers many more ways to mark up a doc. These include drawing over it with a selection of shapes, arrows, and pencils. I could also add callouts, notes, and typewriter text. Another set of tools actually let me calculate the distance, perimeter, or area of a region I clicked on. This was actually more than I saw in Adobe Reader X.

Safety
Though it doesn't have Adobe Reader X's isolating sandbox to protect your system from PDF exploits, Foxit goes beyond Nuance's simple disabling of JavaScript for security. Its Safe reading mode doesn't allow a document to execute any program code without your explicit consent. When I tried opening a link from within a PDF, a dialog box popped up preventing my browser from opening until I allowed the action in the dialog. Foxit also supports Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services for corporate users.

Foxit Reader can verify a document's digital signature, as can Nuance PDF Reader. It can display the name of the signer and validity info in the left panel, as can both competitors. But Adobe Reader X is a much better choice when it comes to digital signatures, since it lets you create your own rather than just verifying those of others.??

Sharing
In addition to letting you directly email a PDF from the viewer, Foxit also lets you share to Facebook or Twitter, after a login. One disappointment with this was that it didn't simple share the PDF I was viewing, but asked me to specify a file from my hard drive folders. Even after I did this, I received a "Cannot parse response xml" error message. Foxit's Mail button, however, attached whatever document I was reading to a new email in my default client.

Speed
Foxit was, by a hair, the fastest PDF viewer of the three I tested recently. I tested by opening the same 9.3MB locally stored PDF file from my hard drive within Firefox in Nuance PDF Reader, Foxit Reader, and Adobe Reader X. I tested both cold (after a reboot) and warm (after the reader had already been run) on a middling-powered laptop with a 2.53GHz dual core CPU and 3GB RAM. Here are my results for how long it took the file to display:

	Cold PDF Load (seconds)	Warm PDF Load (seconds)
Adobe Reader X	8.2	2.0
Foxit Reader 5	7.8	1.8
Nuance PDF Reader 7	8.3	2.3

So, as you can see, with the latest version of Adobe Reader, the differences are no longer as stark as they used to be. Foxit does show a slight advantage, but probably not enough to notice on a moderately powerful machine.

Printing
Foxit let me tweak printing options considerably: I could choose whether to print the document only or include annotations; fit the content to the page margins; print multiple pages per sheet; or even choose a custom zoom size for the printout. Nuance adds a couple more options here, though: It lets you split large pages over multiple sheets and choose the output's DPI. Adobe Reader X, as you might expect, goes beyond either, letting you set up two-sided printing and choose a booklet format.

The Sly Way to PDF
Foxit Reader is one of the fastest ways to start reading PDFs?fastest to download and install as well as when actually opening documents. It also offers a good number of tools for working with PDFs, such as markup, signature validation, and sharing. It also offers a decent amount of security. But Adobe Reader X has a few advantages: it can display every kind of PDF, including those with complex font options; it offers a sandboxed security model, and lets you create as well as validate digital signatures. If you just want a quick fix for PDFs, Foxit is a fine choice, but for full functionality, you still need Adobe's original.

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