What Happened: A Wave of Misleading Posts Targeted PDFgear
Over the past months, some Reddit accounts have circulated posts containing disinformation and misleading claims about PDFgear.
After 5 similar posts appeared, it became clear that they all followed the same pattern: emotional “PDFgear is likely”, “warning” or “beware” headlines filled with allegations and speculations without supporting evidence.
What’s even stranger is that whenever PDFgear users say they haven’t had any issues, their comments get heavily downvoted( we've seen some dropping to -7). Even worse, those neutral commentators get hostile replies from the same coordinated accounts.
Shared patterns among these allegation posts
- Spam identical content across subreddits like r/software, r/pdf and r/microsoft
- Pose as concerned users, but are intended to mislead and spread false claims
- From newly created or long-inactive Reddit accounts
- Receive unusually high upvotes despite little to no genuine discussion
To address the concerns raised in these posts about safety and data processing,we published a series of detailed clarifications on Reddit.
PDFgear is Safe: A Transparent Look at the Recent Allegations.
Why does PDFgear utilise server-side processing for compression and conversion?
We shared our VirusTotal scan results, explained why PDFgear is completely free, and detailed how we handle customer data securely from a technical standpoint to make everything transparent. Overlooking factual clarifications, the same baseless accusations kept resurfacing across multiple Reddit communities. This ongoing pattern strongly suggests a coordinated attempt to damage PDFgear’s reputation.
Based on the consistency and coordination of these attacks, we have reason to believe that many likely originated from competitors. A completely free and feature-rich PDF tool like PDFgear challenges paid products directly. For companies built around subscription models, a reliable free alternative can disrupt their businesses. In such cases, spreading doubt and misinformation becomes an easy tactic to discourage users from choosing PDFgear.
What We Found: A Collaborative Attempt to Discredit PDFgear
Repetitive narrative and bot Reddit accounts
Looking deeper into their Reddit historical activities, we found clear signs of coordinated astroturfing. The same usernames kept appearing across multiple threads, sometimes posting as the original author and other times commenting to each other pretending to be concerned users. Many of these accounts were brand new or long inactive before suddenly posting about PDFgear.
Most tellingly, many of these suspicious accounts were later banned by Reddit, confirming that this was not organic activity but a coordinated effort to harm PDFgear’s reputation through spam and misinformation.
Attack Posts Gained Hundreds of Upvotes in a Short Time
On Reddit, upvotes work like “likes” and downvotes reflect dislikes. In genuine posts, upvotes and comments usually grow at a consistent rate. Namely, when people care enough to upvote, they tend to join the conversation too. The ratio is typically around 5 to 10 upvotes per comment in popular threads.
But when a post racks up hundreds of upvotes with barely any comments, it’s a red flag. Many of the allegation posts accumulated unusually high numbers of upvotes while showing very few comments or genuine discussions. Our screenshots document several examples of this irregular pattern.
On the flip side, threads from PDFgear's subreddit often have more comments relative to upvotes, like one countering "lies" with 40 upvotes and 109 comments (a ratio of 0.3:1), indicating authentic engagement where people are actually discussing.
Downvote and Attack People Who Speak Positively About PDFgear
In these smear posts, positive comments about PDFgear were quickly downvoted into negative scores or met with hostile replies. The accounts posed as concerned users raising doubts, yet their reactions to positive experiences revealed a clear intent to discredit rather than discuss.
They also monitor existing posts that mention “PDFgear” and downvote them on a daily basis.
When people ask for Xodo alternatives in r/androidapps
When people share their favourite Mac apps in r/macapps
Setting the Record Straight: PDFgear is Legitimate and Safe
We’ve already addressed these points in our previous statement, but since you’re here reading this, we want to make it absolutely clear again— PDFgear is safe to use, protects your privacy, and is built with transparency from day one. Below, we’ll walk you through the facts again.
Fact 1: PDFgear is Not Malware
From day one, our goal has been clear: to make powerful, affordable PDF software accessible to everyone. To grow and stand out among paid competitors, we chose to make PDFgear completely free and easy to use, with no sign-up required.
PDFgear has been verified clean by over 70 antivirus engines on VirusTotal, one of the most trusted global malware scanning platforms. Both our Windows and macOS versions show zero detections. Here's the link to VirusTotal Virus Total Results, and you can verify this yourself on https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ by uploading the PDFgear installer (.exe) file downloaded from our official website.
PDFgear apps are also available on the App Store, Google Play, Microsoft Store, and Mac App Store, each enforcing rigorous security and malware review standards. Any app containing unsafe or malicious code would be rejected or removed, let alone allowed to remain available for years.
In short, PDFgear contains no malware or spyware. Every version is digitally signed, security-checked, and officially verified, so you can download and use it with full confidence.
Fact 2: PDFgear Does Not Sell or Misuse User Data
Protecting user privacy is a core principle at PDFgear. In the desktop apps, key features such as PDF conversion, merging, splitting, and compressing are all processed locally on the device, without uploading any data to servers. PDF to other format conversions (such as Word, Excel, or image) also support local processing.
To date, PDFgear has not required an account or collected personal identifiers such as names, email addresses, or payment details. Each user operates the software anonymously and independently, which helps prevent tracking and minimises privacy risks.
Advanced features such as AI and certain tasks on mobile apps still use secure server-side processing when high computing power or licensed SDKs are required. This is a common and widely accepted practice in the PDF industry to ensure platform performance and consistency.
For tools involved in back-end processing, all data transfers during server-side processing are protected with encrypted HTTPS transmission. Files are processed once for the requested task and are automatically deleted after completion.
Even so, PDFgear is steadily transitioning toward local processing. All compression tools and most converters in the desktop app now work completely offline. Web-based online tools like edit, merge, extract, and split have also been upgraded to operate locally within the browser.
Check out PDFgear’s pioneering privacy-first online tools built to enable users to process PDFs directly in the browser without uploading files to a server.
In short, PDFgear has never collected, or misused user data, and never will. All documents remain private, secure, and under full user control.
Fact 3: PDFgear’s “Free” Model is Transparent and Sustainable
We understand that a completely free product can make people curious or even sceptical. People with bad intentions used it to spread doubt. In several smear posts, our free model was maliciously described as a cover for a scam, aiming only to mislead and alarm users.
Why is PDFgear Free?
When we started PDFgear, we were entering a field dominated by long-established paid tools with massive advertising budgets. Competing with advertising money was impossible, but we could compete with quality and honesty. So we chose to focus every resource on making the product genuinely useful — and made it completely free so anyone could try it without barriers.
Our strategy was simple: If users find genuine value in PDFgear at no cost, they’ll keep using and share it with others. And that’s exactly what happened. Our growth so far has come largely from users recommending PDFgear to friends, colleagues, and communities.
When Will PDFgear Start Charging?
Most PDFgear features will remain free for everyone. In the future, we may add a few paid options for advanced tools, such as AI-powered features, high-accuracy OCR, and complex PDF conversions that require more computing power.
We’re also exploring flexible plans to fit different user needs. This way, we can keep PDFgear widely accessible while continuing to grow and offer more solutions for those who want extra capability.
Before we start charging for any features, we’ll make sure to communicate it clearly and well in advance. We’ll also do our best to ensure that the pricing is fair, transparent, and competitive.
Fact 4: PDFgear is Independently Developed
We’ve seen a few comments noting that some PDF apps may look or feel similar to PDFgear. In fact, PDFgear is fully developed and maintained by our team. As a startup, we use well-established SDKs that are widely adopted in the PDF industry. This approach allows us to focus on improving the overall user experience rather than rebuilding common technical foundations from scratch.
As a result, some technical or visual similarities with other PDF applications may exist.
What makes PDFgear stand out is our independent vision and focus on innovation. We were the first to add AI features to a PDF editor and make a truly cross-platform tool free for everyone. Our mission is to keep PDFgear simple, powerful, and affordable to our users.
We Have Retained Evidence and Reserve All Legal Rights
We value and encourage constructive criticism, genuine user feedback, and reviews as vital to our innovation and accountability. However, we will not hesitate to enforce our rights against baseless fabrications, anonymous smear campaigns, or orchestrated efforts to mislead the public. Especially those exploiting purchased or pseudonymous accounts to avoid responsibility.
All related Reddit threads, timestamps, and screenshots have been archived as part of our internal record.
PDFgear expressly reserves all rights and remedies available under applicable laws to pursue legal action against any individuals, groups, or entities demonstrably engaged in defamation, tortious interference with business relations, coordinated manipulation of public opinion, or the intentional dissemination of false statements designed to deceive consumers or inflict reputational harm.