Aha! Adobe alternatives ahoy. Absolutely amazing...

By Richi Jennings. August 20, 2010.

Happy Friday, everyone. This morning's This morning, everyone's a-wailing and a-gnashing their teeth over Adobe's patches. It's reminded me that there are better ways to read and write Acrobat PDF files -- you don't have to use the 'official' Adobe software. Here are my favorite picks, in The Long View.

Alternatives to Adobe software aren't necessarily any more secure than their better-known cousins. However, the fact that they're less widely deployed means they're not as big a target for bad actors. A phenomenon known only too well to Mac OS users (although Apple fanbois would have you believe it's because Steve Jobs personally repels hackers with his bare hands, or something).

Alternative to Adobe Reader
To read PDFs, I use the free version of FoxIt Reader.

I've tried one or two others, but this seems the most full-featured and stable. It's fast, loads quickly, is actively being developed, and supports features like comments, forms, and a decent range of printing options. Windows only, I'm afraid.

FoxIt Corp. would love me to upgrade to its add-on paid functionality, but there's nothing there I need right now. The occasional reminders of the paid functionality, via the built-in upgrade checker aren't obnoxious, thankfully.

Alternative to Adobe Acrobat
If you need to create PDFs, try the open source PDFcreator.

Like all too many open source projects, this little tool has an unattractive, confusing user interface. But once I've set it up the way I want it, I've rarely needed to see it again.

Alternative to Flash? Not exactly...
I can't offer you an alternative to Flash, but I do use the Chrome extension FlashBlock, to stay in control of whether an embedded Flash applet runs within a web page.

Postscript [pun not intended]
By the way, if today's post seems a little more laid back than usual, that might have something to do with what I'm listening to on my headphones. I'm giving Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch a try, with some old Kate Bush (but not that old).

Wow, man. Trippy...

 
What do you use for reading and writing PDFs? Care to share a comment below?
 

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: TLV@richij.com.

You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.