Adios, Acrobat: This privacy-focused PDF editor does it all for free

Repeat after me: You do not need expensive software just to make basic edits to PDF files.

Maybe if you’re a legal professional collecting countless e-signatures on confidential documents, a tool like Adobe Acrobat is a necessity. For the rest of us who just need to sign, merge, split, or fill out PDF documents, there are simple online tools that do the job just as well.

The latest advancement in online PDF editing? One that doesn’t require you to upload any of your personal files—and doesn’t even need an internet connection to function.

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Try this instead of Acrobat

The next time you need to edit a PDF, check out PDF Barber​.

➜ PDF Barber​ is a free online PDF editor that processes your documents directly in your browser, promising not to ever upload them to its own servers.

⌚ It takes just a minute or two to edit a PDF file, with no logins or usage limits.

✅ To get started, choose the type of edit you want to perform, make your adjustments, and download the modified file.

As of this writing, PDF Barber offers 14 different editing tools—including tools for splitting and reordering pages, merging separate documents, appending signatures, and filling out form fields.

Each of these tools is separate from one another, which makes them individually pretty simple to use. If you want to rotate a PDF file, for instance, you can just head to the Rotate page, then choose which pages to flip. (This does mean, however, that if you want to make a few different kinds of successive edits, you’ll need to download a new resulting file each step of the way.)

As for PDF Barber’s privacy claims, I tested them by loading the website, turning off my computer’s internet connection, then using a bunch of the editing tools. Most of them worked entirely offline, though the Split tool produced an error message when I tried to download the zip file with all my documents.

⚠️ While most of PDF Barber’s tools work offline, though, you do still need an internet connection to load the website initially. You can install the site as a progressive web app, but it still needs a connection at the outset.

For 100% offline use, PDF Barber offers a Chrome extension​—though it’s limited to 30 edits before requiring a $10 lifetime license.

When I tried installing the extension with Chrome’s Safe Browsing settings set to “Enhanced,” the browser threw up a “Proceed With Caution” message, noting that the extension isn’t trusted by Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing measures.

Google says new extension developers may need a few months​ to become trusted​. That may be the issue with PDF Barber’s Chrome extension, which otherwise doesn’t require access to your browsing data or any other unusual permissions.

But as long as you have any kind of internet connection, you can just bypass the extension, load the PDF Barber website, and edit unlimited documents for free, knowing that nearly all of it is working offline.

And if your work is so sensitive that you must be completely cut off from the internet to do it, maybe you should be paying for a solution after all.

• PDF Barber is primarily web-based​, with no downloads needed—though you can install its Chrome extension​ if you’d like.
• The tool is completely free to use, so long as you stick to the web version. You’ll only run into a payment requirement if you opt to use the browser extension beyond its limited trial period.
• The PDF Barber ​privacy policy​ is clear about the fact that the service handles all processing locally, on your own device, and doesn’t collect or even so much as see your documents, files, or any manner of personal info.

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