Comments on: Why is Adobe Reader So Terrible?

By: dominic

dominic — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:25:56 +0000

You’re right! Adobe Reader is terribly slow, particularly when opening files on the web. It lags so much and drags down the performance of my computer. I’ve found an Acrobat alternative called Nitro PDF - http://www.nitropdf.com. Performance is much better, very affordable to Adobe Acrobat and same functionality as Acrobat. I believe you can download a demo from the website to try.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 22:37:13 +0000

yo if anyone is still following this thread…. check out this software as an alternative.
its amazing: foxit reader
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

w00t w00t all those days of just staring at my computer screen waiting for the next page to load is OVER!!!!

By: Ansel

Ansel — Thu, 05 May 2005 09:21:56 +0000

Ugh. “Quickstart” == “please slow everything else down”

By: Hayo

Hayo — Thu, 05 May 2005 07:17:50 +0000

Maybe after the first start. Tried that just now; but there were no adobe processes running prior to me loading the pdf in my browser and it was twice as fast in starting up.

By: Clay

Clay — Thu, 05 May 2005 02:53:36 +0000

It load faster now, on Windows systems, because Reader 7 runs a process in the background that allows for ‘quickstart.’ In other words, it’s always running.

By: Hayo

Hayo — Wed, 04 May 2005 08:14:27 +0000

Reader 7 ain’t that bad. It even loads fast now.

By: Ansel

Ansel — Wed, 04 May 2005 05:54:18 +0000

The last 8 words of your post hit the nail on the head: Adobe has no incentive to improve its Reader software because it isn’t feeling any competitive heat to do so. The only “improvements” I’ve noticed with the periodic major version upgrades in the Adobe Reader software are more junk features that generate revenue for Adobe.