I am having a sinking feeling.

If you open a .pdf on your local storage in Edge it will just be displayed. If you choose "save as" in Edge you can save a copy of the viewed .pdf to your local storage. At this point there is no "cloud" interaction under normal conditions. The "cloud" only comes into play if you save a .pdf to a location on your local storage that is synced to a "cloud" service you have set up.
And remember the cloud is just someone else's hard drives.
As for paying your bills, I'm not sure where that enters the equation.

jcloversX said:

I have many pdf files. Many NTSB Reports. All my bills that I have paid online over the last few years.
Microsoft Edge Browser can read the files. But does it continue to save the file on my local hard drive or is it making a copy through One Drive?

I was almost at the tipping point of downloading the "free" Adobe DC Reader. But the DC part gave me pause. I have since learned that DC means Document Cloud. I have tried to find out if that means that the only way I can access the file is through an online application and then the document gets uploaded to "to Adobe Drive". I don't trust online applications there are two many security breaches. So at this point it looks like my old fashion way of paying bills is gone and I will now be forced to use the bill pay option through the bank. What a load of moose caca!

I use Adobe Acrobat 2017 (long time Acrobat user) and print (via Microsoft print to PDF) a copy of all my receipts. I keep the folder in OneDrive so that I can access those files anywhere at anytime, including from my Android device.

Anyway, Acrobat 2017 is the non-cloud version of Adobe DC. The new non-cloud version is Acrobat 2021.

As for fear of online applications or "cloud"..... in the world today, if you fear being hacked that much, you'd might consider totally disconnect from the world. That is use no electronic devices and use no credit card scanners of any kind. Truth is, you don't have to use online services to be hacked. Simply having a vendor swipe your credit card could get your information exposed. Living life in fear is not living.

At any rate, if you want to continue to use Adobe Acrobat, but without subscription.... there's Acrobat 2017 or 2021. BTW, the free Adobe Acrobat "Reader" DC does NOT require an Adobe account, so no cloud services.

Good luck.

Just to add, you can print any document to a .pdf file on your local storage using the built in Windows Pdf printer, just choose print to pdf in the printer dialogue options, you can then print a hard copy at a later date if you wish.
As well as Libre Office, Open Office etc, the GIMP is also free and can open, save and edit pdfs, worth a look, it is also a feature rich image manipulation app.
I understand now how pdfs are linked to your banking.

Any decent browser can open, view, print any pdf. I pay my bills almost exactly the way you do, never use the bank option. I may have it auto debited from my bank, but that's the only connection. I also use the print to pdf and/or save to pdf option all day for various purposes. None of this goes to a cloud anywhere. It could, and I do have a folder of Archived data including PDFs on One Drive.

You can print virtually anything to a pdf. Try this page you are reading. CTRL-P, Print to pdf, say where, done!