Random Monday : Foxit Reader vs PDF-XChange Viewer vs Sumatra
Foxit Reader has been my PDF viewer of choice since version 1.2 – I still remember keeping multiple builds of versions 1.2 and 1.3 of Foxit Reader as some builds could miraclously open PDFs that would crash other builds upon loading. Thankfully, the current version 2.2 of Foxit Reader is much more robust in terms of PDF support but is no longer the most dominant alternative PDF viewer as it was one to two years back during the time of Adobe Acrobat Reader 6/7.
I’ll run through the pros and cons of other alternative PDF viewers that I use. I prefer to use only viewers that do not require installation since I also use them on my thumbdrive for troubleshooting docs at work, so there’re going to be some glaring omissions in this list like Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 
Also, I hardly print out PDFs so I can’t comment on print quality and such.
If you’re only viewing small, predominantly text PDF documents, any of the PDF readers below will suffice but I notice quite a bit of performance differences when it comes to larger PDFs, especially those which are basically a sequence of scanned pages or digital images. I have therefore elected to use the free 73MB official Bioshock artbook as the test PDF.
Foxit Reader
PDF-XChange Viewer
Sumatra
Interface
1. Sumatra 0.8
2. PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0
3. Foxit Reader 2.2
Sumatra has the most spartan interface of all with options like page sizing and page layout (single page / continuous, etc) only available via the menu. If you don’t dabble with page sizing and page layout that often, you’ll appreciate the uncluttered interface and extra screen space over the multiple toolbars of PDF-XChange Viewer and Foxit Reader.
Although PDF-XChange Viewer and Foxit Reader are freeware, the additional unlockable features (with a paid license, of course) clutter the screen with extra toolbars which are unnecessary for most users and eat up valuable screen space which means you scroll more (although you can always switch to full screen mode).
While I love and use Foxit Reader the most, I give its interface the thumbs down for its strange default omission of the status bar (page layout, page number and navigation).
Loading Speed
1. Foxit Reader 2.2
2. PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0034
3. Sumatra 0.8
Foxit is significantly faster than the other two both when loading the viewer application itself as well as for the actual PDF file itself.
Rendering Speed
1. Foxit Reader 2.2
2. PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0034
3. Sumatra 0.8
In terms of rendering, Foxit Reader is definitely faster and most responsive of the three. PDF-XChange Viewer is almost as fast with Sumatra being the slowest of all three. Unchecking Use MuPDF rendering engine under View for Sumatra does speed up rendering quite a lot at the expense of slight loss in image quality.
The advantage of PDF-XChange Viewer is that previously viewed pages render the fastest (cached?) while the other two viewers have to re-render the pages. This is very evident when rapidly scrolling through the PDF.
Rendering Quality
I would say that the render quality very much depends on personal preferences so I’ll just let you decide on the screen captures instead. Below is a comparision of the rendered text – I would say Sumatra offers the best text rendering IMHO.
Foxit Reader
PDF-XChange Viewer
Sumatra
Configuration
1. PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0
2. Foxit Reader 2.2
3. Sumatra 0.8
PDF-XChange Viewer allows you to adjust the CPU and memory resources for the viewer which seems to be a good thing (although I haven’t seen much difference in rendering speed, perhaps with a more powerful computer …)
Foxit Reader has very basic configuration settings, the most important which is Page Display > Display text optimized for LCD screen which will probably make the text display on LCD screens more readable. I’m using a CRT and selecting this makes it worse, of course 
Sumatra’s configuration options are as spartan as its interface. Unchecking View > Use MuPDF rendering engine will provide a boost to rendering speed at the expense of a slight reduction of visual quality.
If you prefer a more scientific comparision (loading time, memory usage, etc) of 8(!) different PDF viewers, you’ll probably find this thread @ the DonationCoder forums very useful.
At the moment, I would recommend Foxit Reader 2.2 as THE alternative PDF viewer of choice although Sumatra PDF is a worthy contender given enough development time and resources (it’s still at version 0.8 at the moment). Since PDF X-Change Viewer’s strength is in its caching of rendered pages, consider it the best option if you view scanned pdfs on a regular basis
Download Foxit Reader 2.2, PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0 or Sumatra PDF 0.8.
MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Free Official Bioshock Artbook
Read Books on Your Mobile Phone with TequilaCat BookReader
Using PDFTK to combine PDFs
Free Military History Books @ Focal Point Publications
2008 Military/LE Firearms PDF Catalogs
on 
on 
on 
on 
on 
So I should get rid of Reader 8 and go with something like Foxit…?
Hmm, Deitrix, for me I don’t have a choice since I don’t have the luxury of installing Adobe Reader on my clients’ computers all the time so I just stick Foxit in my thumbdrive for viewing PDFs.
While I can’t say if Foxit is better than Reader since I rarely use Reader, Foxit does fulfill my needs for a small and fast PDF viewer.
It all depends what type of PDFs you read most of the time IMHO, I read somewhere that Reader 8 still handles the large PDFs the best but small text PDFs might be better served by either of the three viewers recommended above.
Okay, thanks!!
I think I will give Foxit a try… In my line of business I’m looking at pdf’s on a daily basis.
If it’s a lot of digitized images, I would recommend PDF-XChange Viewer for you instead. It seems to cache the pages so that they don’t redraw everytime when you scroll back and forth. Plus, you can configure the memory and processor usage for the viewer which is great for powerful machines.
I use my PDF viewer to read technical docs and board game rules so Foxit is sufficient for me.
Nice, I will check out Xchange Viewer also.
I would definitely prefer PDF Xchange Viewer over the other two (and of course over Adobe Reader), because it’s small and fast and has all the relevant features. However, there is one thing I have not yet found out: How can you horizontally scroll the view, when in fullscreen mode and when the zoomed view is wider than the screen? In Sumatra, you can just use the arrow keys, in PFD Xchange I did not find a key(-combination) to do so, nor was i able to customize one in the options.
I have both Foxit and PDF-X-change, former on my laptop and the latter on my desktop. I make a lot to PDF help files. I use screenshots and mark them up a lot with instructions. I prefer PDF X-change for this. Just like the interface and result better.
I have been using Foxit for more than a year. I love it. But, now I am shifting to PDF-X-change because of a few additional features it got.
-it can attach a file on a file i ,m reading
-Most improtantly, I can pin my favorite documents in the recent files list, like Office 2007. love this feature.