Acrobat Reader is now 657 megabytes in size!

Pawnless Endgame · 16 Mar 2023 at 13:44

I know that terabyte-sized drives are cheap now, but seriously? It's no wonder why it takes a few seconds to open up, even being on a solid state drive. This is just the Reader as well, not the full works. Unfortunately it's my work's machine so I can't change PDF readers. I just wonder why it needs to be so big?

On my home machine, I use Foxit Reader which is just an 8.87MB executable plus a 6.25KB ini file. It opens any PDF I throw at it, and it can edit the forms-based ones too like on Adobe.

yashiro · 16 Mar 2023 at 15:50

Web browsers can deal with PDF's natively.

Donnie Fisher · 16 Mar 2023 at 19:27

I think the reader is essentially the full program but with some features not enabled to the user.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Mar 2023 at 19:30

Just to read a PDF, no thank you.

Pawnless Endgame · 16 Mar 2023 at 19:40

Donnie Fisher said:
I think the reader is essentially the full program but with some features not enabled to the user.

Ah that might make sense. A full program with some of its code disabled if you don't have a full license. It reminds me of CPUs that have some features disabled e.g. a core locked (removed from play) if paying less for the same CPU.

ik9000 · 16 Mar 2023 at 19:44

Adobe reader 9.5.5 was 103MB whereas Adobe 8 pro is 2GB so it seems unlikely the reader has all the features hidden.

BananaDunka · 16 Mar 2023 at 21:15

You don't need a PDF reader, if you use a capable browser like Firefox, then all PDF features that are important are natively supported, inc signing forms etc. I have not had a standalone PDF viewer in years.

Murphy · 16 Mar 2023 at 22:37

Pawnless Endgame said:
This is just the Reader as well, not the full works.

As much as i hate anything Adobe it's called 'Acrobat' Reader and not PDF reader. Basically there's a load of stuff in it that most people couldn't give a rats ass about like the ability to play embedded video & audio, database functionality, and it even has a mail server built in for sending and collecting data people put into a PDF.

Armageus · 16 Mar 2023 at 23:13

Sumatra pdf if you really need a standalone viewer

(Also has an extensive command line for those who like that sort of thing)

Sumatra PDF reader download page

Pawnless Endgame · 16 Mar 2023 at 23:23

Murphy said:
As much as i hate anything Adobe it's called 'Acrobat' Reader and not PDF reader. Basically there's a load of stuff in it that most people couldn't give a rats ass about like the ability to play embedded video & audio, database functionality, and it even has a mail server built in for sending and collecting data people put into a PDF.

Erm. Can you please repeat back to me what my thread title is?

BananaDunka · 16 Mar 2023 at 23:26

On the topic of size, I still lol at Photoshop being over 3GB, I remember the pre CS days when Photoshop was some 500MB?

Murphy · 17 Mar 2023 at 07:35

Pawnless Endgame said:
Erm. Can you please repeat back to me what my thread title is?

Not unless i have Adobe Reader installed and i wouldn't go near that with a 10 foot barge poll.

darael · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:04

Foxit currently has a 554 MB footprint on my install.

Semple · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:16

Pawnless Endgame said:
Ah that might make sense. A full program with some of its code disabled if you don't have a full license. It reminds me of CPUs that have some features disabled e.g. a core locked (removed from play) if paying less for the same CPU.

From a development perspective it makes perfect sense. Why double up on development for what's essential duplicate core features.

Semple · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:16

darael said:
Foxit currently has a 554 MB footprint on my install.

Is that install or cache? Android loves to cache lots.

BananaDunka · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:21

I still am puzzled why people are installing dedicated PDF readers, not needed on both mobile and desktop. Google Drive opens PDFs on Android, and the web browser handles PDFs on desktop as mentioned above by a bunch of us.

ik9000 · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:46

mrk said:
I still am puzzled why people are installing dedicated PDF readers, not needed on both mobile and desktop. Google Drive opens PDFs on Android, and the web browser handles PDFs on desktop as mentioned above by a bunch of us.

garbage zoom, search, printing, side-by-side displaying and all sorts of reasons. I also find firefox refresh to be **** poor when scrolling long pdfs vs adobe reader.

Armageus · 17 Mar 2023 at 20:49

mrk said:
I still am puzzled why people are installing dedicated PDF readers, not needed on both mobile and desktop. Google Drive opens PDFs on Android, and the web browser handles PDFs on desktop as mentioned above by a bunch of us.

Because I'd rather my pdfs open on my left monitor rather than just in a tab on chrome on my right monitor.

Zoom is also terrible on chromes pdf reader, as are the printing options.

Pawnless Endgame · 17 Mar 2023 at 21:17

For me, I can override bright colours on Foxit. This is an important feature for me being visually impaired.

I didn't know that Foxit is over 500MB now. I use the portable app version and it's under 10MB. Desktop, not mobile.

BananaDunka · 17 Mar 2023 at 21:27

Fair about the need for some advanced stuff like printing or zooming, although I have to say I have used both with PDFs and never saw an issue with either? What kind of general browser settings for smooth scroll/acceleration etc are people using in their browsers? You even get a dedicated PDF toolbar on the main window with controls for printing etc.

Regarding opening in a new tab vs a dedicated window that can sit on another monitor, like all browsers, just drag the tab out of its parent window, you now have a window to move to wherever.