If you have ever been frustrated at how long it takes for Adobe Reader to load at times, rest assured that you are certainly not alone. There are many who consider the de facto viewer of one of the most commonly used document formats today to be too bloated and slow. And we are not even talking about some of the security issues that periodically crop up.

On the latter point at least, Acrobat Acrobat Reader is in a way a victim of its own success. Much like Microsoft's Windows operating system, Adobe Acrobat and the free Adobe Reader are often scrutinized for security vulnerabilities by top hackers.

Despite this, the ubiquity of PDF (Portable Document Format) means that organizations large and small continue using Adobe Acrobat or Reader to view PDF files.  So are there alternatives for SMBs who just want to be able to read and occasionally print the PDF documents that they receive? You will be glad to know that at least one alternative exist.

I have been using the Foxit Reader for Windows for the last few years and it has served me well all this time. Personally, I found its loading speed to exceptionally fast -- even complex documents takes no more than a couple of seconds to load on my laptop. Indeed, most documents load within a second on a fast machine, and I'm not talking figuratively here. What's more, the application itself is extremely lightweight, with the ZIP installer weighing in at less than 3 megabytes.

While it would be foolhardy to depend on using lesser-known software for better security, the fact remains that the less popular Foxit Reader is unlikely to have the same flaws as its better-known competitor. Things might well change, of course, especially if Foxit Software continues to do such an excellent job with its software.

In the meantime, you really should consider checking it out.