I was reading a pdf of a book that was a little spicy. And I noticed the amount of added extra's that adobe has now with it's ai summaries and inbuilt web searches, even the page number field is difficult to use with bloatware.
It struck me that if I were to read something of a "banned book" list, like catcher in the rye, I wouldn't particularly want adobe to monitor and send back what I was reading. What would be the best way to read PDF files that's localised entirely to my machine? a pdf reader and nothing more?
I'm using https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader
It's a very minimalist and lightweight pdf reader. Also does ebook and comic book formats.
Yup, came here to recommend exactly this. I also use the built-in Caliber reader for ebooks.
Is reading in-browser not an option? I feel like that might work...
I don't allow in browser PDF reading, and I use Foxit PDF reader to read PDF files. Have for many years.
Find an open source PDF reader with no ads.
I wouldn't no any because I'm addicted to Adobe Acrobat even with all the bloatware. There's no saving me.
An ebook reader thats free, called "Calibre" supports PDFs and comic books and many formats. I've used it in the past, it was good.
It's also great for converting between formats, which I have taken advantage of to get books into an Amazon Kindle.
You can disable the AI stuff in adobe acrobat in the settings, but it is pretty annoying either way. I don't know any good alternatives but I'd like to hear what others are using too.
Okular is the KDE one. It's common in a lot of Linux distros, and open source so you can be fairly sure it's not phoning home.
I don't know if I'd call it the best. But it's an option.
If that's not to your taste, check pdfreaders.org for a big list of them.
I just use Brave, the inbuilt no-frills pdf reader is great. 99% sure it ain't calling home for shit.
If you want an option for tablet I would highly recommend dropping the six bucks on CDisplayEx. It's built as a comic book reader but it'll give you the no frills experience you're looking for.
Is anyone using packet sniffers to see what these programs are phoning home with?
Microsoft Edge has a highlighting function for passages.
MuPDF maybe? (Standalone exe, small, works, gui is minimalist though)
browser with PDF.js and the network connection off. Usually the way I go only I am too lazy to turn the network off.
Evince if on linux.
On phone i use moon reader, on pc i use okular. Moon is good, okular is okay.