Major feature missing from Adobe Reader 9?

Tony Austin
Thursday, 14 August 2008 11:35

Opinion and Analysis

Even though I regularly scour the Web for useful utilities for decades, I somehow failed to come across Foxit Reader until the last month or so.

I've been using it for a month or so now, and agree with Foxit Software's claims that it's lightweight to download (3.7 MB for version 2.3 versus 33.5 MB for Adobe Reader 9), installs quickly, and launches fast.

But more than that, much to my joy it has tabbed document windows -- as well as a single instance if you select that option --  see Figure 2 (where the tabs are circled in red).

Figure 2 - Foxit Reader v2.3 showing document tabs (circled in red)

And I've already been in touch with the Foxit Software people, nice and approachable they are (not aloof and distant like I found Adobe Systems, and Skype, and quite a few others who don't seem to really want to listen to you). So, for example, I've already been able to explain to them my reasons for wanting enhancements like increasing the paltry upper limit of 10 documents in the recent history list.

Therefore from now on I'll be a devotee of Foxit Reader and if you've not been fortunate enough to come across it yet (assuming you don't need the extremely powerful extra features of the Adobe Acrobat family) certainly highly recommend it to you. It's free in reader mode, and there's only a modest license fee to enable its editing features.

Well, have I got egg on my face, or not?  As I said at the outset  I'll apologize, and retreat back deep inside my shell, if I'm wrong about this.