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I am looking for a free Pdf viewer (not so fancy). The only thing I need to do with the Pdf viewer is to view Pdf files, zoom in-out (just basic features). Most importantly, it should not keep checking for updates or doing some tasks in the background.

Cool Pdf Viewer fullfills all the requirements except that it is not stable (crashes, hangs, unstable, scrolling slider doesn't work) and it is not free for industrial distribution.

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  • At a customers site (where I have to use Windows – personally, I only run Linux machines) I use Foxit Reader and quite like it. The linked variant is the portable version (which I'm using), it's also available for "normal install" if preferred. It has more than "just basic features", so I'm not sure whether it would be acceptable to you? It's definitely stable (I never had any crash, but I'm neither a "heavy PDF user").
    – Izzy ♦
    Oct 27, 2016 at 11:39

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MuPDF is a very lightweight PDF reader which has a Windows version.

In my experience, it is incredibly fast (faster to open and faster to scroll through pages than any other PDF reader I have ever used). It seems to render pretty much any PDF file perfectly, and it supports all the basic scrolling / zooming / rotating you might need, while having no obtrusive menus or toolbars and provides simple keyboard control and mouse scrolling / dragging.

It is licensed under the GNU AGPL, so it is completely free to use for any kind of commercial purposes.

It should come as a simple Windows executable with no automatic updating, and files can PDF files can be opened with it using "Open With" in Windows Explorer, or just by running the executable and selecting a PDF file.

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I have been using SumatraPDF for a while now and I like it as it is lightweighted, fast and simple.

Note by LShaver: I can vouch that it is definitely stable. It is free, and the website includes no information about licensing - so I'd assume it's free for industrial use as well.

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  • I can vouch that it is definitely stable. It is free, and the website includes no information about licensing - so I'd assume it's free for industrial use as well.
    – LShaver
    Oct 25, 2016 at 18:02
  • Thanks, @LShaver – I've integrated that with the answer to make it easier to spot.
    – Izzy ♦
    Oct 27, 2016 at 11:41
  • SumatraPDF is rock solid. It is in fact based on MuPDF as well (the other recommendation). The only possible downside one could see about it is that it's Windows only, but then this hardly matters for this question. The best feature it has is the lack of support for many of the fancy PDF features which have been the vehicle of security issues of other PDF viewers. Not sure if that's specific to SumatraPDF though (e.g. disabled via build options) or MuPDF-specific.
    – 0xC0000022L
    Dec 13, 2019 at 7:56

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