Is there an alternative to Adobe Reader?

All of us have probably used Adobe Reader before. Its the most popular PDF reader and provides a browser plugin. Being the most popular, you can guess that its the most targeted for exploits. In addition, the program tends to be a resource hog and often will slow down your computer when you click a PDF link. Is there a possible alternative that not only reads PDF, but provides a browser version and is not slow?

Product Name: Foxit Reader
Publisher: Foxit Software
Version Reviewed: 3.0 Build 1817
Date Reviewed: June 26, 2009

Rating:
85
out of 100

Foxit Reader is a free download from their website. It has also recently won CNET Editors Choice April 2009. They also try to get you to buy the pro version from the website. The download is only about 3.5 MB. Compare that to Adobe Reader’s 16 MB Download.

Upon starting the installation, it opens with a splash then you just agree to the license and after clicking next, the window disappears and after just seconds, the installation is done. The installer will continue to offer you Ask Toolbar with extra Foxit Features and shortcuts to eBay.

See this slideshow for more details. Having trouble viewing it or want to view it in full screen? Click here (Picasa Web Albums).

The overall performance of Foxit Reader is much much faster than Adobe Reader. Clicking a PDF link in browsers no longer lags the whole browser. Very lightweight. Also adds some extra features like content sharing. However, there is one area I was not impressed about.

The following applies to Windows Vista and Windows 7:

You may wonder why the plugin version was not shown. Version 3.0 of Foxit claims to have a Mozilla plugin. However, when I tried it, it just instantly froze Firefox and then gave me a message that the “Server is Busy” and for me to Switch to or Retry. Both buttons did nothing and the server was clearly not busy. I then tried it on Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari and the same result happened, only without the error message. Google Chrome offered to stop the plugin. I had to end process to all the browsers to close it. Looking at the Foxit Forums and some Download.com reviews, it looks like I’m not the only one with this issue.

On my Windows Vista machine, the plugin had the issue shown above. On Windows 7, the issue occured too however after Firefox restarted and restored tabs, the PDF actaully loaded but lagged a lot. That only happened once. The rest of the tries it just didn’t work.

The plugin works perfectly on Windows XP however. I tested this on Firefox 3.0, Firefox 3.5, and Google Chrome 2.0. All works fine.

Workaround for Vista/7 Mozilla Firefox Users:

In Firefox, there is a workaround available, which is basically not using the plugin and have PDFs open the whole program. Go to Tools –> Options –> Applications . Then scroll down to PDF Document or Foxit Reader Document (or whatever your PDF files are named). Then on the menu, click on Foxit Reader – Best Reader for Everyday Use. Now, everytime you click a PDF link, it will open PDFs in Foxit Reader and ignore the plugin.

Verdict:

If you run Windows XP or earlier, you should definitely consider using Foxit Reader for PDFs.

If you run Windows Vista or Windows 7: If you are a user of Internet Explorer or other ActiveX based browsers, Foxit Reader is the superior alternative to Adobe Reader. However, if you use the majority of browsers, which are plugin based, like Firefox or Opera, you might want to wait until this plugin is fixed. Or if you don’t mind not using a browser plugin, you can have Firefox open PDFs in Foxit Reader rather than trying to use the defective plugin.

Hows the plugin working for you?

Foxit Reader Download Sites:

Official Foxit Software Site
CNET Download.com

Technorati Tags: Foxit Reader,Review,PDF

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta (First Looks)

Its been in the news since November, but its finally here. The public beta of Microsoft’s new free security offering, known as Microsoft Security Essentials, Codename Morro. It is intended to replace Windows Live OneCare.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free security offering that’s intended to replace Windows Defender and Windows Live OneCare. It offers real time protection and both antivirus and antispyware. Therefore, as you can guess, it was at very high demand.

It was released this morning as limited public beta to the first 75,000 people. I was able to grab a copy just a few minutes ago and install it on my Windows 7 RC system. The servers were extremely slow probably because of demand and the very small 4.7 MB download went no higher than 10 KB/s. To get it, you need to sign into Microsoft Connect with your Windows Live ID, then answer a quick survey. "This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People’s Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only)" according to the beta site.

View details in this flash slideshow. Having trouble viewing it? Click here to view the full album (Picasa Web Albums).

Overall, this is an excellent new product and is likely to trigger some competition with the other free security products like AVG. It is based off of Windows Live OneCare, which has a reputation of having low false positives and strong new detection rates.

Being free and very light is already amazing. The scan took no more than 4.6 MB of RAM. However, I noticed that a SYSTEM process taking up almost 30-50 MB of RAM was always running and this was part of the program’s services. When I ended this process, Security Essentials gave an alert that the service was stopped. The process is MsMpEng.exe which is called AntiMalware Service Executable. In task manager, you need to show processes from all users to see this. The program overall is very resource friendly compared to other security products.

Update 6/26: I ran a full scan of my system (including both operating system partitions) and it scanned well over 2 million items and took 3.5 hours. If I recall correctly, my Windows Defender scan I ran in December 2008 when I only had one operating system took longer than that to scan around 600,000 items. In my experiences with MSE, it is faster than Defender.

The product, especially the About Window and the Settings tab looks very much like Windows Defender (Windows 7 version).

Overall, I’m very impressed by this new product. It would be nice however if they would bring back the Software Explorer from Windows Defender for XP and Vista.

My computer was not infected so I didn’t get a chance to test out the removal. While this is a great new product, I cannot place any recommendations just yet as there has not been any thorough testing for this beta product just yet for factors such as detection rates. It is likely to be similar to Windows Live OneCare, but there are no guarantees. However, I believe that this could be a great new product that could trigger some competition.

MSE also updates like Defender. Definitions are received through Windows Update. If will also disable Windows Defender after installing. You could turn it back on if you want but there isn't much benefit to that since both probably use the same engine. You could turn it on just to use Software Explorer if you are using XP or Vista, then turn if back off so your system performance won't be affected much.

Want to try it for yourself?

Microsoft Security Essentials

Keep in mind that this is BETA software.

Update 6/24: One day after the beta release, the 75,000 download cap has been reached and Microsoft is no longer accepting any more new downloads.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Security,Essentials,Morro

Linux MultiMedia Studio: Free FL Studio Alternative?

Familiar with FL (FruityLoops) Studio? This popular professional commercial program is used to create music as well as create remixes. From their website, they offer a demo version which actaully has full functionality…. except for the fact that the save project (as FLP-Fruity Loops Project) is disabled. Therefore, unless you finish the whole thing, then export the project into a music file and never intend to work on it again, you would have to buy the program. While this might be okay, are there free programs that might come close?

Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS)
Designed for Linux. For Windows (Windows 98SE and higher) and Linux. Free and Open Source.

This free and open source project is currently in beta stage, therefore, it does not come without bugs. Some of the obvious bugs are the fact that the play button often becomes a pause button. However, overall, the program works great!

It even supports VST Plugins (used by FL Studio) and FLP (FL Studio Project Files)! Works and looks quite like FL Studio. If you’re familiar with FL Studio, you should have no trouble getting used to LMMS (or vice versa).

The interface feels a bit cluttered depending on your screen resolution. This screenshot shows how it looks playing one of the preset samples. It supports .ogg, .wav, and .mid media files. Unfortunately, there is no .mp3 support at all right now. You can also import .flp files. You can learn more about how to use this program at their Documentation here.

Basically, you can drag the media files into the Song or Beat Editor. In the song editor, each part can be a series of notes. Double click on the part then you will be a large grid with a keyboard on the side. Clicking on the grid adds that certain note. You can also use their collection of beat, drums, and much much more. Full detailed guides can be found at their Documentation.

Don’t worry, it may seem very confusing at first. But once you use it for a while, you’ll get used to it and even have fun making your own music. You can even share your songs with the world.

This program is new and is in beta. It is quite strong and a possible alternative to FL Studio. The program could become a very successful open source project.

It doesn’t cosume much system resources when its idle. CPU Usage depends on the number of tracks you have on the song. When I tested it, it consumed around 150 MB of RAM.

Click here to learn more and download Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS)

Technorati Tags: Linux,MultiMedia,Studio,FL,Wintechpedia

Techsmith Snagit 7.2.5 Free License! Limited Time Offer

Need a screenshot tool? How about one from TechSmith, creator of the famous Camtasia Studio!

For a limited time (like in 2007), they are giving away free license keys to an old, but fully functional version of TechSmith Snagit. Version 7.2.5. The latest release is 9.1, but it still beats the old way of Print Scr, then pasting it somewhere.

With Snagit, you can customize the shortcut hotkey, like Print Scr, then choose various capture profiles, such as Window, Region, Full Screen, etc... Lots of other options too including Video capture and web page (scrolling too). That means you can capture the whole page regardless of its length. After capturing, it opens the built in Editor where you have plenty of options to edit. Then you can organize it by tags.

SnagIt Information Can be found here.
Note: Not all this info will necessarily applies to the old version.

Grab your free license key here at the promotional site
Download Snagit. Enter Your License Key and Enjoy!

Made possible by Covermount, although I don't know what that is.
This also entitles you to a 50% discount on upgrading to Snagit 9.1.

11 Totally Free Apps You Should Try

Wondering what software you should try? Well, you’ve come to the right place. These are names of 11 free ones we recommend. These selections are solely based on our opinions. If you have a program that you recommend, leave a comment in the comments section. Here they are in alphabetical order. The following are mainly for Microsoft Windows. Check their website for system requirements. Some programs might not be compatible with 64-bit operating systems. See the publisher’s site for details. We are not recommending any antimalware program or browser add-on here. All features we mention here are available in the product’s free version.

7-Zip:

File Manager and Compression: Having trouble opening .rar? Don’t want to spend so much on programs like WinZip and WinRAR? Try 7-Zip! This free and open source utility is simple, yet extremely powerful. Unpack a variety of different file types including 7Z, ISO, RAR, ZIP, and much more. Create archives, even SFX (self extracting) and password protected ones. It can also be used as a powerful file manager. Windows only with a command line port for Mac OS X and Linux. Read our post on 7-Zip for more details. Alternatives include IZArc. Paid alternatives include WinZip and WinRAR.

CCleaner:

Computer Optimization: Too much junk on your computer? Not sure whats safe to delete? The freeware CCleaner does it all for you. Check a few boxes, then click Analyze and Clean. That’s it. You might be surprised how much you can clean. Be careful with the areas marked Advanced. Leave them alone if you don’t know what you’re doing. CCleaner also includes an uninstaller, startup manager, system restore, registry cleaner, and more. Read out post on CCleaner for more details. Note: Like many programs, by default during installation, a box for Install Yahoo! Toolbar to run CCleaner from browser is checked. If you do not wish to have Yahoo! Toolbar, like me, simply uncheck the box.

Digsby: 

Multi-Protocol Chat Client: Forget those single protocol clients and go with something that can connect to them all and more! Digsby stands out of them all, not only because its completely free, but it has email notification and social networking newsfeed built in! Compose email right from the interface in the chat windows, elegant tabbed interface with drag and drop to new windows or rearrange, set social networking status, and much much more! Other features include quick reply notification, full log viewer, merged contacts, and more. Its free and ad free!
Note: In order to get funding for the development of this ad free program, Digbsy’s main installer uses a third-party installer known as InstallIQ. This offers a lot of useless junkware. Simply press Decline if you do not wish to have the extra software. You do NOT have to press Accept on anything but the one that is for Digsby itself. Alternatively, you may use another installer (not third party) which is found by clicking on the "here” button in the fine text after clicking the operating system where it says if you have trouble. Or you can click here to download the alternate installer right now. Read about this alternate installer and the program at my review of Digsby here. Read about their revenue methods here. Currently Windows only. Alternatives include Pidgin and Trillian. Paid alternatives include Trillian Pro.

Gadwin PrintScreen:

Screenshot Utility: Sure, you can press Print Screen then paste it into programs like Paint, but thats way too slow and inefficient. Windows Vista and Windows 7 include a Screen Snippet tool but its still not very efficient. Gadwin PrintScreen is here. The free version doesn’t have an editor but you can set it to automatically open your favorite image editor such as GIMP or Paint.NET. Attractive interface and powerful features. Paid Pro version which does have an editor available too. Paid alternatives include Techsmith SnagIt.

GIMP:

Image Manipulation Tool: Want Photoshop? Don’t want to spend so much? Try the free and open source GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)! This program lets you touch up images and add special cool effects to it. It might be confusing at first, but its very easy to use. Easily create animated .gif images. There are way too many features to explain them all. Try it for yourself and find out! Great free alternative to Photoshop. Alternatives include Paint.NET. Paid alternatives include Adobe Photoshop.

Google Earth: 

Virtual Earth Viewer: Love traveling and exploring new places? Google has created an amazing and popular program known as Google Earth. This free program lets you view aerial images of the Earth with some 3D building models as well as street view! Thats not all. You can also go on a Flight Stimulator, Sky Mode, and more! Version 5.0 adds going underwater and Google Mars as well as Historic View! This program requires a lot of RAM especially video RAM. If you don’t meet high Video RAM, it will still work, however the oceans will not be animated. Even if you don’t meet the top notch requirements (like me, I don’t meet video RAM), just meet the minimum requirements, and the program should be very enjoyable. Like many Google products, they have a tradition of easter eggs and April Fools pranks (such as CADIE, which was actually quite fun). Can you find them? Pro version designed by commercial use available too.

Mozilla Firefox: 

Web Browser: Award winning browser that gives you security, speed, and full customization. Thousands of add-ons to customize your experience. Want a feature or looks? Maybe there’s an add-on or theme for that, such as the new Personas add-on! Dozens of security features such as Instant Web ID. Hundreds of more features, such as the Awesome bar. Type any part of anything and it will search for history, bookmarks, and if you hit enter from there and its not a complete URL, it will search on the default engine like other browsers, however, your term is a keyword, so if you type in for example, weather it will automatically go to weather.com skipping the search results. While it might not be as fast as some other browsers, we would prefer a bunch of unobtrusive features over a slight speed boost any day. Alternatives include Opera and Google Chrome.

Revo Uninstaller:

Clean Uninstaller: You might be asking. What’s the point of this? An uninstaller? Erm.. doesn’t Windows have this already? Wrong. Programs, especially security programs, are a pain to uninstall. They want you to think that they have fully uninstalled but is that true? Revo Uninstaller now only runs the program’s built in uninstaller, it also runs a scan of your registry and computer for any remaining files. Then you can choose which registry entries or files to delete. A system restore point is always made beforehand. Very efficient and powerful. This program also comes with a startup manager, traces cleaner, tools manager, unrecoverable secure delete tool, and more.

Sandboxie:

Isolated Sandbox Environment: Run programs. Test programs. Without ever making any permanent changes to your computer. Integrating with Windows Explorer’s right click menu you can run any program in Sandboxie where it will write to data to a sandbox environment. Easily delete this data at any time. Very useful program. Unlike virtualization tools, this only runs one program in a sandbox rather than a whole new operating system. After 30 days using the free version, you will see a nag screen for the paid version however you can continue using the program normally. Programs running in Sandbox are marked by [#] in the titlebar. You can even run .exe installers in Sandbox to install onto Sandbox to try some programs. Plus version available.

 

Sun xVM VirtualBox:

Virtualization Tool: Need to virtualize an operating system? Want to test a new operating system without partitioning and dual booting? Well, there are many virtualization choices out there, but this one stands out, not only because its completely free and open source, but the performance is great. While it might not run as great as the pricey VMware, its free! Multi-platform both as the host and the guest system. Run multiple operating system on top of your main (host) one. Very easy to configure. Test programs on other operating systems in a mostly isolated environment. Note: Like all virtualization tools, even VMware, this will not support the Windows Aero interface available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 because the virtualized video card does not support the WDDM Driver and DirectX 9.0 (some tools like VMware support DX9 but not WDDM). Alternatives include the free VMware Server. Paid alternatives include VMware Workstation.

Credit for the following screenshot goes to Sun Microsystems.

VLC Media Player:

Media Player: Ever have trouble playing media files of certain file types like .ogg. Need a simple media player? The free open source VLC Media Player is here to help. Play nearly every single media file type. The program is very simple. Opening file types can be a bit harder than typical media players. It can be skinned however I will warn that the behavior is completely unpredictable when you do so. But this is a wonderful media player that is worth a try!

So there you have it. 11 programs for Microsoft Windows and possibly other systems too that we urge you to try. Got a program that you want us to try and perhaps blog about? Leave a comment in the comments section or contact us through the contact form. I have personally tested all of the above software and they all work perfectly. Performance varies depending on your system specifications.

Technorati Tags: WinTechpedia,Free,Apps,Programs,Microsoft,Windows,Try

Zip Up Your Wallet! Its Free!

Need to extract files from an archive like .rar but don't want to pay for the program? Heres a solution to your problem (Windows only with a port to Linux/Unix).
7-Zip, a free and open source archiver supports the following formats:

Packing and Unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking Only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z

It can also unpack .xpi files (Firefox add-ons) because they work like .zip files.

Simple yet very powerful interface that can also be used as a file manager. Easily create .exe self extracting archives (SFX Archive) and integrates nicely with Windows Explorer's right click menu. You can also create password encrypted archives and much much more. The command line version is 7z.exe and the normal version is 7zFM.exe.

Very high compression ratio thats higher than both of the popular paid programs, WinZip and WinRAR.
Don't be fooled by its simple interface. The powerful features are within. Click the image below to visit their home page or click here. As of April 17, 2009, the latest version is 4.65. Installer file: 7z465.exe (name changes for each version... 465 is 4.65) powered by Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS).

Supports Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista and there is a command line port for Linux/Unix Systems.

7-Zip Copyright © 1999-2009 Igor Pavlov.

That's all folks for today! Please comment on tech as we need comments to improve on the tech guide. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks!
By - Freedomstar & Creastery™ 2009

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