Yes, but...
That's only because Adobe brings out a new version of their damnable within the time it takes for you to download and install the update to the last version.
Six out of every 10 users of Adobe Reader are running vulnerable versions of the ubiquitous PDF reader package, according to stats from freebie anti-virus scanner firm Avast. Adobe applications, behind only browsers and Microsoft Office as a favourite target for hackers, are regularly the target of Trojan-based hacking attacks …
When you leave WIndows for OSX (which I did a year ago), the first thing you notice after having sworn at the lack of cursor navigation is the update silence. Sporadically, an update would come along but in general it's open lid, work, ready, close lid, and a weekend reboot just because I'm tidy that way (part of my backup cycle).
That piece is brought home when you then start a Windows machine after it has been off for 2..3 weeks - it's an eye opener.
Anyway - that peace is brutally shattered when you install Adobe Reader, and Adobe Air is even worse. I swear, those version numbers are actually hourly timestamps given how often that updates. It would be nice if they could actually just write decent code..
AFAIK, the damn things use its own updater, so when Apple finally brings out Lion I'll start from scratch and make sure Hands Off! denies it both disk and network access until *I* decide it's time to update. As a matter of fact, I don't really need their PDF reader..
Why can't MS design their updater so that Third party updaters can be plugged into it, in a similar way that you can add additional repos in yum?
Then you'd be 1/2 way there if MS defaulted AU to on, and third parties installers asked to be allowed to add their update location into MS update.
Yes, Adobe s/ware is crap, but there is a wider issue that there is no built in way for apps to be updated under windows - the best the app designed can do is to include their own, so that rather than having a nice straightforward 'run updates every night at 03:00' or, whenever I choose, or whatever in one place each checks for updates whenever it feels like, and you have to update them individually.
MS fail for not providing a mech to allow for updating of all installed apps.
This is pretty much what I came here to say. Imagine how much cleaner Windows would be with a one stop update center for all your installed software (similar to how iOS handles it). The way it works now is every program, even some from the same vendor, runs its own background service to check for updates. What a waste of resources.
I also came into the comments to see if there was someone already saying this. Pity the first response to said comment was an idiot assuming it was an MS bashing.
Microsoft NEED to adopt a (secure) method of allowing 3rd party tools, especially very popular ones, to update in the SAME way Windows and other MS products do. It would save having 14 different little popups bitching about updates when you log in. And given how some vendors seem to think their updater is the most important tool you've installed, it could speed up login times for many users.
"Six out of every 10 users of Adobe Reader are running vulnerable versions of the ubiquitous PDF reader package"
I'm pretty sure 10 out of every 10 are doing so. What you mean is that they are running older versions, and since a patch essentially tells the bad guys exactly where and what the vulnerability is, some of the holes in older versions are now public knowledge. But both the older and current versions surely have holes Adobe haven't found yet.
but recent versions have been bloated, slow and unreliable. Firefox integration is rubbish also.
I find Reader X pretty good - the best version of Adobe Reader for a long time. Startup times and memory usage seem much improved since v7-9. I recently removed foxit completely and replaced it with Adobe reader, after being a long-time foxit user. Happy with it so far
I've avoided this particular hassle by using FoxIt Reader for some time. The added benefit is it's a much leaner app. Unfortunately I do have to have Flash (ah, ah!) on my PC to run my Poser library and this has had quite a few updates in the last few months, with the worry it's gonna break something each time
In 99% of cases they could be replaced by something leaner, as functional and just as pretty.
It's always been an overused format. Mainly preferred by designers to maintain their "artistic vision".
These days pure laziness.
Technical/Legal documents ... maybe. But if your restaurant only has it's menu in PDF version - and I'm trying to read it on a mobile device. Forget it.
I'm guessing, but probably because the original text was created with MS Word and you can create a plausible PDF from a DOC but the HTML support just blows, so the easy way for a doofus to get a DOC on the interweb is to print to PDF and put that nice "download Adobe Trojan now" on their webshite.
The NSW state government department I used to work for had a far easier method to post DOC files to the internet.... Simply post the DOC file to the internet.
Was particularly fun whenever a new version of MS Office came out and the newer documents wouldn't open on any computers still using older versions (which was usually most computers).
Why does adobe acrobat reader have to be 100 meg + in size while foxit reader is a little over 10 meg and does the same job?
I have been using foxit as a replacement for over 12 months and apart from a stint of the royalmail website insisting i needed acrobat and refused to work with foxit ive never come across a pdf or website that hasn't worked correctly with it. (Royalmail website now works fine with foxit btw)
Of course they're out of date Adobe.
Have you used your own software? Every time I start your reader I get prompted to install a new update, which takes the best part of 10/15 minutes - and all I was after was to read an invoice.
Even when you're not using Adobe Reader actively, the sodding tray icon keeps throwing up balloon tips demanding I update. I just makes me resent updating that little bit more.
Tips:
Leaner software (which equals smaller faster updates)
Less frequent updates
Less intrusive notifications/nag messages
PDF used to be a nice, simple format that you could trust. But that wasn't enough for Adobe to continue to sell new versions, so they started adding extra crap like Javascript. Guys, we DO NOT NEED scripting in documents we're sharing.
Now your options are to continue on the Adobe treadmill (spending more time downloading and installing updates than actually using the software), or to switch to something more secure instead.
You need to be running Reader to manually start the update process yet not have it running to update it otherwise Reader's files will be in use and it'll want to restart Windows to be able to update them.
Yes, you heard that right, as soon as you use the menu option to check for updates you must close all instances of Reader while it's downloading and before it starts installing.
It's only with the last couple of point releases of 9 and X that there's anything approaching background automatic updates, and even then no release of Reader will update to the next major version. So it's not surprising that hardly anyone's running the latest version (which incidentally has Comment and Share buttons taking up half the toolbar and are impossible to get rid of).
Crap, but not as bad Flash Player on Windows still treats Active X and NPAPI plugins as different beasts which need different installers and then there's separate uninstaller. I'd like to meet the brilliant mind at Adobe which thinks it's a good idea to have a security hole in one browser but not another on the same machine.
These days software's evolved to the point where in the best cases, for a home user, you can set it to update itself quietly in the background and be reasonably confident your computer won't go bang (eg Chrome browser).
Adobe software, on the other hand, requires you to handhold it every step of the way with several confirmation dialogs, and there seems to be no easy way to tell it to "just go ahead and update and stop bothering me". True for Reader and for Air (which iPlayer uses), both of which appear to push out updates every few days, and no doubt also true for other Adobe software. To think I nearly decided to buy Audition....
There are three regularly-used PCs in our house (and a couple of less-frequently used ones) and I'm damned if I'm going to spend my Sundays updating Adobe software simply because they can't be bothered to improve the update automation.
Any network I have control over be-it corporate or home the first thing that goes is adobe reader, and in goes foxit. Users then whoop with joy that their pdfs actually open quickly instead of taking the same time that it takes to load crysis!! for the love of god adobe you know something is wrong when you take 200MB's or more to do what foxit can do in around 10MB and with alot less of the swiss cheese effect.
Personally I've got bored with updating the crap as it seems to be asking to install a new version ever bloody week! For me Adobe lost my confidence when they started putting in options in the app to enter credentials for buying stuff: ffs, it's a document reader!
I use Foxit at home: a big improvement.
Another one that bugs me is the java updater: it keeps prompting me for UAC access to update, and then bombs out 'cos it doesn't seem to be able to handle running as alternate credentials. FAIL!
Another vote for FoxIt. And another down for Adobe Reader. Not only does it need constant attention but the updater needs to get in its place as it throws out the odd "please check your internet connection" message.
Unfortunately, this is only a dialogue with "OK" with no space to enter "I'm on a f-ing train on f-ing laptop without an f-ing internet f-ing connection".
It Adobe didn't put bugs/security holes in it'd up to date and there'd be no issue.
...that's just a shade under 1Gb.
PAH! Just kidding.
The reason it's sidelined on my machine isn't the launch times (they're actually not too bad, considering the monolithic size of the app) it's because it's out-performed in every area by the Preview app that comes with the OS. It's an order or magnitude slower on re-draw operations, Preview only takes up 12Mb on disk, and it refuses to respect that fact that I don't want its shitty browser plugin taking over PDF duties from the much better OS-level components available to Safari.
Where's my turd icon in the shape of an Adobe logo?
We bounced Acrobat 9 out of here over a year ago after back to back to back exploit reveals and put out Foxit.
I loved Foxit 4.x but so far Foxit 5.0 is not so good. They have lost their way and made it ugly and bloated. The simplicity of version 4 was a good thing.
I've used Adobe Reader X some, but I cannot toggle the often used view settings as easy as I could in Foxit 4. Oh well, at least Reader X is secure (cough).
I'll be trying one of the other viewers now (PDF Xchange?) to see if there's a better solution for my company.
The last decent version is 4.0. They keep adding scripting then need a fix when it is hacked. Then you can play music with it, then movies. Better add DRM so can have copyrighted stuff. On my Win 98 box, I have version 2. It is very small and fast. I bet it has no vulnerabilities to hack into.
Was that it wanted a reboot after an update. Hello Adobe - the 1990's are calling and want their application back.
And why do people insist on making forms in Acrobat that don't allow you to save them, even though they are asking for lots of data? I had one from Dell - a 5-6 page form asking for information for a new SAN install. You were supposed to fill it in all at once and e-mail it to Dell. I ended up having to print it out and fill it in by hand, before filling it in on the computer. WTF?
Yay for Foxit here as well. If you ensure it doesn't install cr*p through the installer.