When I read that comment I decided it was time to uninstall Adobe Reader and found it was taking up 145MB of disk space. Many thoughts went through my mind. Maybe there was whole virtual civilization in there and I just wiped it out. Maybe Adobe Reader is skynet and I'm John Connor. Maybe it was time to find a new PDF viewer.
My first try was Foxit. I found its short name promising. The installer confused me with talks of Javascript and safe mode, did not look good. First paper I opened crashed the program. *sigh. Sumatra was had the colourful charm of the web in the 90s. I was almost ready to give up the resistance. I took a deep breath and clicked the link of the installer. Before the next breath it was installed and I was opening PDFs that looked just fine.
Yeah, Foxit is getting pretty bloated too. My PDF reader of choice on Windows now is Evince. It may not look pretty, but it's fast and lightweight without any fluff.
ACtually you don't need to install another app... Once you removed Reader, just set the pdf filetype to always be opened by GoogleChrome. It views, prints, and it's blazing fast
Because Adobe has some kind of serious systemic code quality issue and they get beat by exploit writers all the time. It doesn't help that their applications are so popular and widely installed that they present a juicy target. I refuse to have acrobat installed, and I'm super paranoid about where I let flash run.
If you have flash and acrobat installed and let the plugins run anytime a site requests them you're begging to be owned (and owned and owned).
That last statement might be a tad exaggerated....
I've been using Flash and Adobe/Acrobat reader for years and have yet to be "owned" through either channel, and I spend a lot of time browsing the web.
Make sure the user account that you run flash and adobe reader under is not privileged. I hosed my account once on a bad pdf, but it didn't get past the one user account.
Worse, it seems to require a full computer reboot. Every. Time. This implies it is hooked so deeply into Windows that if Reader sneezes, Windows will get an appendectomy.
Not only that, but I have Foxit as my default pdf reader, and when I update Reader on Win7, it forces itself to become the default reader --- WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. This is just aggressively rude of Adobe.
I have exactly one reason to launch Reader by itself: when setting up a computer for another user in my organization, I launch Reader once to accept the license agreement on his/her behalf. Then I delete the icon.
On two occasions, my wife received PDF monstrosities via her school. The first time, I was astounded at the size of a PDF we had to download. When we opened it, it contained a movie. I was dumbstruck.
The second time, I tried to open one with Foxit and was informed that I MUST use Acrobat, which I dutifully installed. This PDF was actually a browsable archive of OTHER PDFs.
We already have video files, and even streaming video. We already have zip files. I want to beg Adobe to stop the madness, but if they've already put an email server inside Reader, there is truly no hope.
With you 100%. Except for when I had to read documentation for the UPS API, which requires Reader (by design). Terrible. This isn’t a PDF, it’s an abomination. http://yfrog.com/4ewijp
> "At least with Adobe Reader all the crap comes from the same company."
Actually, last time I updated Adobe Reader it came with a copy of McAfee something or another...
That was when I nuked all traces of Reader off my system. Not only is their software crappy, bloated, and slow, but it's also a crapware vector to boot.
If I were a dev on the Reader team, I'd be pretty depressed about my life - millions of people cursing your name, eviscerating your product in forums and boards everywhere, everyday... and they're right.
This is one of the main reasons why we launched crocodoc.com, to do the same thing to Adobe Acrobat that Gmail did to Outlook: Take a bloated offline application, bring it online, make it easy to use, and make it accessible to the masses.
When you think about some of the most common reasons why people use software like Acrobat and Word (e.g. viewing a document, filling out & saving a PDF form, commenting on a presentation with a group), these are all things that should be easy to do online or on your mobile device. That's the vision we're working towards at Crocodoc: view and collaborate on any document on any device.
Ech. What a horribly inaccurate and confused post. Somehow the writer managed to completely conflate Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, two related but different products. I'm not one to defend Adobe, but this misinformed raving doesn't shed light on anything.
The full PDF standard, for which Reader is the reference implementation and things like Foxit serve but subsets, is also much larger than you think it is.
It's amazing that Windows hasn't got even a tiny back-to-basics PDF viewer included by itself. (Or maybe the more recent versions do?)
I've been using evince (or whatever it is that ships with Ubuntu this year) for years and never even considered that there might be a case where one would want to install a separate PDF viewer. Before that, xpdf was the standard reader and it was enough, too. Maybe Linux desktop isn't that bad all together.
I left Acrobat when I left Windows :) I feel like it is one of the first things my mom would download and install after a fresh Windows XP format/install.
I was seriously annoyed recently when my former employer's payroll software required that I have Adobe's PDF plugin installed to download my W2. It wasn't a .pdf link, no; it insisted on using the plugin before it would let me save a copy.
This app refreshes too frequently. That one refreshes too infrequently. Then I installed this other one and it refreshed just right. Then 3 Bears came in and crushed my computer.
Ever since 10.1 the Flash updater is ridiculously fast and never asks me to restart my system. Easily the best automatic update experience among the various programs that constantly need to update themselves.
[+] [-] tybris|15 years ago|reply
My first try was Foxit. I found its short name promising. The installer confused me with talks of Javascript and safe mode, did not look good. First paper I opened crashed the program. *sigh. Sumatra was had the colourful charm of the web in the 90s. I was almost ready to give up the resistance. I took a deep breath and clicked the link of the installer. Before the next breath it was installed and I was opening PDFs that looked just fine.
TL;DR remove adobe reader, install Sumatra
[+] [-] kylec|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fwdbureau|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Silhouette|15 years ago|reply
... Try to print anything... Remove Sumatra... Install Adobe Reader.
[+] [-] trotsky|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelhaasnoot|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rtaycher|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trotsky|15 years ago|reply
If you have flash and acrobat installed and let the plugins run anytime a site requests them you're begging to be owned (and owned and owned).
[+] [-] norova|15 years ago|reply
I've been using Flash and Adobe/Acrobat reader for years and have yet to be "owned" through either channel, and I spend a lot of time browsing the web.
[+] [-] singlow|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0nastic|15 years ago|reply
For the life of me, I can't think of a single reason why I would ever want to launch Reader by itself (and not by launching a PDF file).
[+] [-] gvb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windsurfer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GeorgeTirebiter|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordanroher|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billybob|15 years ago|reply
The second time, I tried to open one with Foxit and was informed that I MUST use Acrobat, which I dutifully installed. This PDF was actually a browsable archive of OTHER PDFs.
We already have video files, and even streaming video. We already have zip files. I want to beg Adobe to stop the madness, but if they've already put an email server inside Reader, there is truly no hope.
[+] [-] westbywest|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beaumartinez|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antidaily|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeryan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spikefu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ludwigvan|15 years ago|reply
Preview is also pretty good though, it has nice gems like cropping pages. http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=200711012305556
[+] [-] TorKlingberg|15 years ago|reply
Evince on Unbuntu has worked great for the past few years for me.
[+] [-] potatolicious|15 years ago|reply
Actually, last time I updated Adobe Reader it came with a copy of McAfee something or another...
That was when I nuked all traces of Reader off my system. Not only is their software crappy, bloated, and slow, but it's also a crapware vector to boot.
If I were a dev on the Reader team, I'd be pretty depressed about my life - millions of people cursing your name, eviscerating your product in forums and boards everywhere, everyday... and they're right.
[+] [-] rdamico|15 years ago|reply
When you think about some of the most common reasons why people use software like Acrobat and Word (e.g. viewing a document, filling out & saving a PDF form, commenting on a presentation with a group), these are all things that should be easy to do online or on your mobile device. That's the vision we're working towards at Crocodoc: view and collaborate on any document on any device.
[+] [-] GiraffeNecktie|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yason|15 years ago|reply
I've been using evince (or whatever it is that ships with Ubuntu this year) for years and never even considered that there might be a case where one would want to install a separate PDF viewer. Before that, xpdf was the standard reader and it was enough, too. Maybe Linux desktop isn't that bad all together.
[+] [-] simonbrown|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emehrkay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluekeybox|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pinckney|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Qz|15 years ago|reply