Lately PDF file format has come under the question of security. The PDF file can carry malicious code and is therefore may infect your computer with malware. One solution is to use portable PDF viewers. When you use portable PDF viewers, no add-on for vieweing PDF files inside the browser is installed, and when you click on a PDF file inside a browser, it does not open inside the browser but a prompt to download it is shown.
When you use portable PDF viewers, it also saves you from installing all the crap like browser add-ons, toolbars, auto updaters etc.
You can download portable PDF viewers from these links :
- Sumatra PDF Reader : http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf
- Foxit PDF Reader : http://portableapps.com/apps/office/foxit_reader_portable
But one big problem with portable PDF viewers is that they are not associated with PDF files. You can associate PDF files with portable PDF viewers so that when you double-click on a PDF file, it opens in the PDF viewer. This is how you can associate PDF files with any portable PDF viewer.
Note : This will not work if you have installed a PDF viewer like Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit PDF Reader etc.
- Download Associate PDF from AssocPDF.zip and save it on your desktop.
- Extract the contents of this zip file to a folder on your desktop.
- Double-click on AssocPDF.exe to run it.
- Click on the Browse button and select the portable PDF Viewer executable as shown in the picture.
- Click on the Associate button to associate the PDF files with the selected PDF viewer.
You will see that the icon of PDF files changes and they are associated with the selected PDF viewer. If later, you want to associate the PDF files with any other portable PDF viewer you can follow the same process.