I’ve used Adobe Acrobat Reader for years because it has always been the obvious choice for opening PDFs. But lately, I’ve started looking for something simpler. I don’t need a full document suite every time I want to read a manual, article, or technical document. That’s how I ended up trying SumatraPDF. It is an old-school open-source alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader that takes a very different approach. Instead of trying to match every feature Acrobat offers, it focuses on being a desktop reader. After spending some time with it, I found myself questioning how much of Acrobat’s extra functionality I actually need for everyday PDF reading.