Acrobat
• takes forever to load because it loads 20 helper programs, all but four of which are unnecessary.
• often crashes browsers unaccountably, so frequently that I set pdf files to open outside my browser.
• Sometimes requires being killed with Windows Task Manager.
• doesn't embed fonts by default, so that periodically one encounters pages that are illegible.
• asks for updates incessantly.
• puts useless toolbars in Word, Excel, and Outlook that require a lot of searching to remove, and reinstall with any update. (I've stuck at Acrobat 6 partly because I'm afraid I won't be able to eliminate these space-robbing additions.)
• automatically runs a helper program which doesn't seem to speed loading of the main program, so just exactly what does it do?
• spends way too much time talking to the parent company over my internet connection.

For years, since Acrobat 4, I've viewed it as a necessary evil.

But I have freed myself from Adobe Acrobat, and with freeware to boot! To open pdf files, I use PDF X-VWER. I used to use Foxit, which is fine, even a bit faster than X-VWER, but with fewer features. Both programs load and open a file in two or three seconds. Compared to Acrobat, it is instantaneous! But readers are only part of the story -- I need to be able to manufacter pdf files too, and for that I use PDF Forge Creator. It creates a virtual printer that creates a pdf file. It works at least as well as Acrobat, and has yet create that ominous error "The document failed to print" like Acrobat occasionally does. It can print a google satellite map, which acrobat usually could not do. Xchange can add text and sticky notes, extract sections, and export photos. In addition, there is PDF Split and Merge which gives merging functionality.

January 11, 2007, Revised to add X-Change, Feb 10, 2008.