The best reason for not using the Acrobat Reader from Adobe is that it is slow, slow, slow.

The Foxit Reader is an excellent choice on the Windows platform - fast and free.

Download link here: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

I recently became infected with a Windows virus. I was using Foxit reader and downloaded a PDF file that used a javascript exploit to place a DLL in my PATH. This virus-infected DLL was found before the real DLL because browsers search for it in three locations, in order.

The version of Foxit reader I was using did not have the ability to turn off javascript. It may now.

Google for 7.7.7.0

I used to use Foxit, but have since turned to SumatraPDF. It seems to be a little lighter weight than Foxit.

Of course, pretty much every viewer on *nix is faster than Adobe Reader, which makes it all the more irritating and confusing every time I forget that it is set as the default in our CS labs...

Agreed! Foxit integrates well with Firefox and even opens some huge PDF's that Acrobat Reader chokes on and brings my laptop (C2D 2.1Ghz, 3GB RAM) to a crawl.

I'm a big fan of the Apple's Preview. It's really fast. On a side note, I may showing my naivete here, but w(ho)tf is F-Secure?

"Of the targeted attacks so far this year, more than 47 percent of them exploit holes in Acrobat Reader while six vulnerabilities have been discovered that target the program, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of security firm F-Secure, said in a briefing with journalists."

Also: http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA/about-us/

Yet another antivirus company looking for publicity for their patent medicines.

Since we also have this article - Foxit Reader exploits in the wild - http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2996 So lets all switch to linux :)

I really don't get why that thing has become so bloated through the time. The size of the Vista installer of Acrobat Reader 9 is 41 MB!!!

I remember the good old days when its installer size was around a few MB, and not the monstrousity of today.

I prefer FoxIt Reader too.

While the article itself gets this wrong, the program is actually called 'Adobe Reader' as of v9.

Not to be pedantic or anything.