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Speeding up Adobe Reader’s loading time
August 21, 2007 | 11:56 am
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By David Rothman
To make Adobe Reader load faster, you might try a freeware program called Adobe Reader SpeedUp, from Joseph Cox.
“The main reason why Adobe readers load slow is due to the plug-ins,” says TechnoSpot.Net. “Adobe reader loads all the plug-ins which is most of the time is not useful for the normal user.”
Caveats: No, I do not know if SpeedUp program is spyware free, and I haven’t tested it at this point. Scoop me! Try it yourself, with suitable precautions, and share the results.
Related: PDF Speed Up, an older program mentioned in TechRepublic.
Obvious questions: So why isn’t Adobe including, in Reader, switches to turn off unwanted plug-ins? Why the need for third-party programs?
(Found via TechnoSpot.Net.)
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Comments:
I tried an earlier version of one of those two programs (I don’t remember which). It didn’t seem to make a lot of difference and Acrobat Reader was acting squirrely. After I uninstalled it, I also had to reinstall Acrobat Reader. I don’t know if the current version of these programs are any better or not.
In lieu of a program, just go to the Acrobat Reader plugins folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\plug_ins) and rename the plugins that you don’t want to load.
I renamed four plugins as follows:
Accessibility.api.save
MakeAccessible.api.save
Multimedia.api.save
ReadOutLoud.api.save (There shouldn’t be a blank line before this one. The blog software insists on inserting one.)
This makes Acrobat Reader load almost instantly.
One other security tip: disable Javascript in Acrobat Reader. For most people and practically all PDF files, there is no reason to have this enabled. Javascript is an easy way for someone to compromise your computer via a maliciously infected PDF. There is a bug in Acrobat Reader 7 that gives you an error upon exit if you disable Javascript. There is a fix, but it is a bit technical.
As for Adobe not making it easy to disable stuff, it is the same stupid mindset that Microsoft, Quicken and many, many others have. Every new version has to have more bells and whistles. “Rampant Featuritis” as it is known. They also have the arrogance to insist that you use their software how they want you to use it and not what is convenient, or even safe for you.
Of course, there are a few alternative, free PDF readers. Foxit and eXpert are commercial freebees. Sumatra is an open source freebee. All of these make Acrobat Reader look like a two-ton elephant.
Agree with poster above Just uninstall acrobat and use either foxitreader which is free (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/) or sumatrapdf(http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/download.html) both which loads instantly and take up very little memory
The current version of Foxit Reader has succumbed to the Dark Side and now has Javascript capability. The main reason I uninstalled Foxit is a bug it has when displaying images in a PDF — badly.