I confess that the Lab (my mad scientist space at the house) has too many computers. Between the Lab and the rest of the house there are around 10 computers in some state of use at any given time. Represented operating systems include 5 versions of Windows, Mac OSX, Ubuntu and FreeBSD. With so many machines of varying vintage and configuration to support, I'm always watching for free, inexpensive and easy applications to deploy.
While Adobe has consistently made Acrobat Reader available free of charge, and for some files, that application may be irreplaceable, there is an alternative that has yet to let me down. Foxit Reader is available without charge for Windows, Linux and some mobile platforms.
Foxit is small, very quick to launch and provides a nice tabbed interface for having multiple PDFs open at one time. I use it on both Windows and Linux machines.
In addition, Foxit looks poised to offer a legitimate and affordable alternative to the 'full' Adobe desktop PDF products for those of us in offices (Acrobat can have lots of advanced features for those in the printing business, depending on version). Check out their other product capabilities and pricing (topping out at $129) here. Adobe's full feature desktop PDF products range in price from $299 to $699. At an initial glance
I am encouraged to note, perhaps as a result of competitive pressure, that Adobe recently enhanced the functionality of the free Acrobat Reader to allow markup by reviewers without the need for a paid product provided that the PDF author has allowed it.
In a move dear to my heart, Foxit makes their PDF iFilter available free of charge for desktop use.
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