Randomness.

[kyhwana]

Adobe Reader v7.07 vs Foxit PDF reader 1.3

Download size: 20,756K vs 1,244K.
Install time: 1:30 vs ~10-15seconds. (The time it takes you to open the zip file and extract the .exe somewhere)
Install Size: 165MB vs 2,712KB
Startup time: 1s vs 1s (After being run at least once)
Blank startup CPU usage: 1.25sec vs 0.68sec
Blank Ram usage (private/working set): 21,152K/25,220K vs 2,520K/7,176K.
After opening a 990K [1]PDF (RAM): 34,744K/41,952K vs 4,548K/10,340K.
CPUTime: 2.35s vs 1.10s

[1]http://uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/files/i-9.pdf

The conclusion being that if you're just reading normal PDFs, why do you need a huge bloated 165MB install? Now really.

Comments

[meow-tuna.livejournal.com]

I've never had that sorta usage and CPU Time with adobe, actually much less. I have adobe 7.07 starting from blank in less than a second.

[foofox.livejournal.com]

...plus, it has a nifty-sounding name ^^;;

[greytail.livejournal.com]

I prefer Acrobat myself -- the real Acrobat, and not the Reader, because I can then create PDF files that have much better compression than, say, the PDF exporter in OpenOffice.

[mikosquirrel.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, Adobe's PDF products are some kind of malicious practical joke.

[stahi.livejournal.com]

Audition's a good product.

[meow-tuna.livejournal.com]

Audition is a damn fine product - I use it for my production work. What the other person was referring to was their PDF product, Acrobat. I will admit, the way most people and companies for that matter use it, it's not worth it. However used correctly, acrobat is brilliant.

[stahi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know, I was just making the point that Adobe's not all THAT bad. ;D

[fenrirwolf.livejournal.com]

Don't forget:

Adobe Acrobat reader's updater is broken for me. So EVERY TIME I start Reader, it bitches about needing a new version. I go through the whole process of downloading the update only to get "Some Generic Error" message from the installer. And no, I haven't uninstalled the whole mess and re-installed -- because if I run that uninstaller, the damn thing isn't coming back.

Oh, and I shut my system down, or restart it, guess what I usually get to watch? "Adobe Acrobat Reader is not responding. Please wait..." I then find some hung Acrobat reader process from like WEEKS ago. (I hibernate my PC, instead of cold booting the OS every time. This works pretty good, except with shitty programs that hang and linger like digi-dingleberries.)

Yes please! More Adobe, more!

I'll have to give Foxit a shot.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha 165 megabytes? What the balls!

[margaras.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it doesn't seem to handle large PDFs well. I just tried it with a 81MB full color 354 page book (rpg game), and on each page it stops, sucks the CPU usage to 80-99% for about 20 seconds, then loads the page. Bleah. Now this is a piece of crap P3-650mhz with 768MB ram, but... Acrobat Reader doesn't do that. Oh well. I was excited about it, as I tend to read ebook using Acrobat Reader lately, and I wanted something smaller on my laptop. Thanks for letting us know 'bout it, 'tho, lubekitty.

[whitelock.livejournal.com]

You know the bit that really gets me? This is how you install Adobe Reader on a mac:
1) Download the installer. It's a disk image, so you mount that and then run the installation program. Does it install Reader? Noo.. it installs the Adobe Reader download program.
2) Run the Adobe Reader download program. This downloads a second disk image which contains the actual Adobe Reader installer. You mount this, run this installation program and that actually installs Reader.

WTF? You have to download their own download program to download their Reader?

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Not forgetting, of course, that you can't just download (random numbers ahead) version 7.0.5. Nope! First, version 7, then 7.0.1 (or maybe 7.0.2, if you've been good), then 7.0.3, and maybe a direct hop to 7.0.5. Gack!

The lack of combined updaters is vaguely understandable, as you can't really expect such a small company to maintain a multiplicity of updaters, but why on earth can't someone download the latest version of their software?

Mind you, it should be noted I am not a highly paid executive. This may be a salient point.

[whitelock.livejournal.com]

I know! Also.. yay, 'nother bunny! :D

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

165MB? Egad. Does the installer leave an installation receipt noting what new files were installed? For that size, I can only imagine it must come with a positive boatload of fonts, including complete Unicode representations in some.

OS X isn't quite a level comparison, as PDF's part of the internal imaging model - so the Preview app just calls on system frameworks to do the heavy lifting. Seems to work quickly enough - Hyzenthlay opened that document in something like a second, so presumably faster on one of the most recent systems.