On 28 Oct 2009 at 12:08, James Hill wrote: > I was a bit late to the party with this one. This looks like quite a nice > little Acrobat Reader alternative. Is anyone here using this as the default > pdf reader? Have you had any issues? Any other feedback on it? James.
I use it as default and don't have any problems with it, but I hadn't noticed the lack of "all users" icons and menu entries. Also didn't notice that it grabbed PDFs without asking, as that's what I wanted anyway. I've tried other alternative PDF readers, including SumatraPDF (no way to disable Javascript) and PDF-Xchange (bloated compared to Foxit Reader). Foxit Reader does NOT need to be installed, just copy "Foxit Reader.exe" from an installed copy and run it. I chose it because of the constant discovery of exploitable bugs in the Adobe Reader, and because Adobe Reader bloated immensely from AR5 to AR9, adding crap features most users will never need. I also chose it because Adobe announced they were going to a QUARTERLY patch schedule. That's way too infrequent IMHO for something that's both exposed to the Internet as a browser plugin and as ubiquitous as their reader. FWIW I never install the browser plugin for Foxit Reader -- if any of my users want to read a PDF, they can do so outside the browser. Embedding a PDF reader in a browser just eats up even more screen real-estate AND adds just one more attack surface to an Internet-facing program. One thing it doesn't do is honor your settings after you upgrade to a new version; it resets things like the Internet search, display in browser, and Javascript. Not Good. But easily fixable by using a .reg file with the correct settings. I have also discovered the undocumented registry key one needs to add to turn off the advert panel in Foxit Reader v3 (it was a settable item in Foxit2, but they disabled the ability to turn it off in v3 -- I just looked at Foxit2's INI file and added a matching key to Foxit3's registry area, and it worked!). Here it is, FWIW: ------- Included Stuff Follows ------- Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader\MainFrame] "ShowAd"="0" "DisplayInBrowser"="0" "JavaScript"="0" "HideQuickSearchBar"="1" "DisabledQuickSearch"="1" --------- Included Stuff Ends --------- This [a] turns off the advert panel; [b] disables displaying PDFs in the browser; [c] disables Javascript, one HUGE attack surface in PDFs; [d] hides the "Internet Search Popup" ; and [e] disables searching the Internet from the PDF. The last 4 can be set from the GUI, but having it in a .reg means I can enable this automatically for my users. Enjoy ... Angus -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-895-3270 ~! ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
