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Tom Feiner
Asked: 2009-06-08 23:08:12 +0800 CST

Open Source PDF reader for windows as an alternative to Adobe reader

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With the latest javascript vulnerabilities in Adobe reader and bloat it has aquired over the years, I've been thinking of moving the network I'm in charge of to a different product for PDF reading on Windows.

The ideal PDF reader should be something that is:

  • Small in size (Adobe reader is more than 200MB these days after installation).
  • As secure by default as possible (For example, javascript disabled by default).
  • Nice looking and easy to use interface.
  • Not bloated with features (I just want to read PDFs, that's it).
  • Does not install any toolbars/unwanted add ons/spyware.
  • Does not display any ads while viewing PDFs.
  • Preferably Open Source. (this pretty much ensures no ads).
  • Full Unicode support.

Idealy , something like evince from gnome, will be the best option, but unfortunately that's not available on Windows.

Foxit is an option, as it is small, and has a nice interface. But it still has javascript enabled by default which might lead to vulnerabilities - and it installs a toolbar , and displays ads while reading PDFs which is distracting.

There is a site dedicated to Open Source PDF readers, pdfreaders.org, however, the Windows pdf readers each have their problems, mostly the interface is not as convenient (as evince, adobe or foxit).

Here's a list of all PDF software from WikiPedia. There's a "Viewers" section for each OS.

What Windows PDF reader would you recommend ?

windows deployment pdf adobe

9 Answers

  1. I use Sumatra PDF viewer. It seems to work rather well, it loads almost instantly (compared to 20 or so seconds for adobe) and is very fast with page changes and what not. Also, no ads unlike Foxit.

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  2. I recently deployed Foxit to replace Adobe Reader at our company. I pushed out a custom INI that turned off JavaScript and the ads (I was surprised to find that the ads were a simple configuration option, and even more surprised to find that all this was in a @&*($&^! INI in the Program Files\Foxit directory), as well as a few other custom options.

    I, too, was hoping for an open source solution, but Foxit was the only thing that met our needs, and with the INI preference changes and a permissions change to let normal users read and write to the preferences INI it seems to work like a charm.

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  3. Best Answer

    Evince is working on Windows now, but there's no binaries yet, so you'll have to build it yourself.

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  4. MuPDF. Brought to you by artofcode LLC & Artifex Inc. -- the same people that develop Ghostscript.

    • Open Source as preferred by Tom Feiner,
    • multiplatform (Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, ...soon maybe Android, iPhone too?),
    • very lightweight (see screenshots below) --
      the highly-rated SumatraPDF from this answer uses MuPDF as its rendering foundation,
    • full Unicode support,
    • very fast,
    • secure as defined above (no JavaScript support),
    • very surely not bloated with features,
    • not displaying adds (unless you deem the copyright notice in the "About" screen as one...),
    • nicely looking and easy to use....
      hmmm, decide yourself: the interface is very simple (keyboard navigation only, no menues or icons):

    MuPDF: very simple GUI -- this is all the GUI it has. MuPDF: keyboard navigation only, no menues or icons.

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  5. It might sound odd, but how about an old version of Adobe Reader, back when it was called Acrobat Reader? v6 can open pretty much all PDFs (except the ones with the fanciest features), it's small, and fast...

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  6. I don't think finding an alternative PDF viewer solves the problem you are trying to solve. Adobe is terrible with security, we all know that, but at least they patch things up quickly (well, mostly) so as long as you have a good system managing the updates, it's fine. All software has bugs and security holes, finding an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader will simply introduce another set of bugs and holes, instead of eliminating them.

    I understand you might be talking about more than just security here, but really, if security is your main concern, the solution is to shorten the window of vulnerability to as short as possible.

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  7. KDE has been ported to Windows recently, so you should be able to use KPDF which is great.

    http://windows.kde.org/

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  8. You can download the Evince for Windows installer at:

    http://download.gnome.org/binaries/win32/evince/2.30/evince-2.30.0.msi

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  9. There is a open source project that is pretty sweet if you want to build a web based PDF viewer:

    http://flexpaper.devaldi.com

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