The new Adobe Reader 9.3.2 Lite has now been released and is available for download from various free file hosting sites. We recommend to check the program with an updated antivirus application to make sure that is it clean and usable.

Adobe Reader 9.3.2 Lite is offered as a portable standalone version of Adobe Reader, something that Adobe is not offering as the 9.3.2 update is only provided as an update and not a standalone version. The Adobe Reader download at the official Adobe website still links to version 9.3 of the pdf reader and users who download that version need to make sure to install the updates immediately to protect their computer system.

It is not clear why Adobe is not updating the version offered for download on their website. That it is possible shows the release of Adobe Reader 9.3.1 Lite which is the – unofficial – lite version of Adobe Reader.

Adobe Reader 9.3.1 Lite is basically a version of Adobe Reader with several modules and features of the program removed. This in turn speeds up the pdf reader, especially its loading time.

Adobe Reader 9.3.1 Lite can be directly downloaded from Rapidshare. Executing that portable version will throw an error message as it does not include the Eula of the program. This can however be easily fixed by importing keys into the Registry that tell Adobe Reader that the Eula has been accepted.

Save the following file as adobe.reg and double-click it to add the information to the Windows Registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AdobeViewer]
“TrustedMode”=dword:00000000
“EULA”=dword:00000001
“Launched”=dword:00000001

Adobe Reader 9.3.1 Lite can be downloaded directly from Rapidshare.

The features that are removed are not usually used by the majority of the computer users that install Adobe Reader.

Adobe Reader 9.3 Lite has now been released for the US English version of Adobe Reader.

The changelog of Adobe Reader 9.3 Lite reads:

* Removed autorun/desktop shortcuts and converted start menu shortcut to non-advertised
* Removed several features and plugins that the average user has no need
* Removed Beyond Adobe and Lic. Agreement popups, the dialog asking to help make Adobe Reader better and Create PDF using Acrobat.com from the toolbar and from the embedded reader in browser
* Removed all (auto)update® features and AcroRd32Info.exe with no errors in the event log
* Form filling allowed and removed the No Save warning when filling forms
* Removed more unneeded stuff
* Some cosmetic changes

Adobe Reader 9.3 Lite can be downloaded from the developer’s Skydrive storage space at the Windows Live website.

The release of Adobe Reader 9.3 Lite has been scanned with Norton Internet Security 2010 which did not find malicious code. It is still recommended to scan the setup file with an up to date virus scanner to make sure that it will not infect the computer system with a computer virus, trojan or other malicious software.

Another possibility are so called lite versions of software suites. Both Nero Burning Rom (Nero Lite) and Adobe Reader have been modified by developers to reduce the program’s load times and storage requirements. Adobe Reader Lite has been recently updated to version 9.1 to catch up with the official Adobe Reader 9.1 release. Several plugins and other features that are usually not needed by the majority of users have been reduced from Adobe Reader Lite to make the software program more resource friendly. The basic functionality of working with pdf files has been retained.

The result is size decrease of more than 140 Megabytes compared to the official version of Adobe Reader 9.1 which uses 204 Megabytes of storage space after installation. Downloads are available for the English and other localized editions of Adobe Reader 9.1.

Adobe Reader 9.1 Lite speeds up the startup of Adobe Reader tremendously. It is a good alternative for users who prefer to use the original products instead of third party solutions.

The creator of the Windows Vista Codec package created a lite version of Adobe Reader that got rid of most of the stuff that bloated the PDF reader but was not used by most users anyway. The lite version does not load as fast as Foxit Reader for instance but makes up for it by still being the official Adobe product, something that a few users probably prefer.

Adobe Reader 9 Lite uses roughly 6 Megabytes of memory and 18 Megabytes of Swap space when running which is extremely well for that kind of applications. I can definitely recommend using Adobe Reader 9 Lite if you have no use for most Adobe Reader features. Foxit Reader and others are still excellent alternatives that come with an even lower memory footprint and faster load times.