For a long time, I was a big fan of Foxit Software’s PDF Reader. I changed my mind once I got my new computer with Windows Vista.
The reason is because Foxit Reader requires you to enter an administrator password whenever you open a PDF document in Windows Vista (I’m running the 64 bit version). This is an issue that Foxit has known about since at least April 2009 and their developers are supposed to be working on a solution (click here for details).
First, this is extremely dangerous (I posted to the thread to point this out) because running Foxit with administrator rights results in an administrative level compromise should a vulnerability in Foxit be discovered and exploited (note that I am not aware of any such vulnerabilities). Therefore I do not recommend that you use any of the work-arounds listed in that thread, nor do I recommend that you disable User Access Controls (UAC) in Vista. Yes, UAC is extremely annoying, but it does offer some protection provided you don’t just allow every program to run as administrator.
So since I’m tired of entering a password every time I open a PDF document — and I’m still not willing to install Adobe’s bloated reader software on my computer! — I’ve switched to Sumatra PDF Viewer for now. It’s portable (I actually use it on my Portable Apps thumb drive) and it has not yet asked me for an admin password to open a PDF document.
I do hope that Foxit can address and fix this issue soon, but until then, I cannot think of any reason to recommend an end-user software product that needs to be run in administrator mode, especially when alternatives are available.
UPDATE: Please see this post for an update to the PDF reader saga… Sumatra PDF didn’t work out, either!
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Had exactly the same issue, which was more than a tad annoying (and as you point out, dangerous!) I was running the 32-bit version for Vista, so the same problem exists there.
However, I took your advice and moved to Sumatra PDF Viewer, and ended up with essentially the same problem. Every time I opened a PDF I was asked whether I wanted to associate PDFs with the program. Doing so brought up the UAC, naturally, but it failed to work. Manually adding the association didn’t solve the problem, and I even ticked the wrong box on Sumatra’s pop-up dialogue box which meant that every time it opened, a UAC request popped up too!
Fortunately a quick fiddle in the registry showed that the system file association wasn’t the same as that for the user. I wouldn’t want to say if that was the fault of a dirty clean up by Foxit or a lax install by Sumatra, but either way, finding a decent alternative to Adobe turned out to be an arduous journey!