Why does anybody use Acrobat when they can get other readers. The world is mad!

[edited by: engine at 5:16 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2009]

I second oddsod. I dumped Acrobat in favor of other readers that are faaaaaaaaaaar less bloated. What happened to Adobe? They used to make good software :(

Not everybody knows about the "other readers". I have several, including Acrobat. Just kill the Adobe javascript and this particular vulnerability is vastly reduced, if not eliminated.

Why does anybody use Acrobat when they can get other readers. The world is mad!

I second oddsod. I dumped Acrobat in favor of other readers that are faaaaaaaaaaar less bloated. What happened to Adobe? They used to make good software.

Wow! I never realized Adobe was so hated around these neck of the woods?

I use it every day. In fact, I just finished pdf'ing a 26 page proposal complete with attachments, etc. It is a standard in the print industry.

Just because there is a vulnerability they become the target like this?

What browser are you using? What OS are you using? What CMS Package are you using?

And I've never heard of those other pdf readers. Why would I? I have Adobe Acrobat Professional installed and have been using pdf since its inception. Why would I want to switch? Who is to say that those other programs aren't more vulnerable? They just haven't been targeted yet.

If they haven't been targeted then aren't they already safer? ;)

The main competition to the Acrobat reader is small, fast and cool.

Don't wait for Adobe. Switch your site links to the vendor-neutral pdfreaders.org now!

(Note: I have no relationship with that site, other than liking it.)

I also switched to Foxit as a PDF reader, the Adobe Reader has become way too bloated and takes forever to load. Forget all that javascript, multimedia, DRM stuff, when I view a PDF, I just want to read a document or view some vectorial graphic, not browse the web or what not. Foxit is lightweight and snappy. That's how I want my plug-ins.

And I've never heard of those other pdf readers. Why would I? I have Adobe Acrobat Professional installed

Most people - including myself - don't create pdf docs, they just read them. And all they want is one that loads fast, is safe, displays well, is reliable and doesn't hog resources. The competition does that very well indeed.

[edited by: phranque at 9:31 pm (utc) on Feb. 22, 2009]
[edit reason] please see TOS #24 [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

Crank up your Acrobat, EDIT/PREFERENCES and turn off all the bells and whistles. Loads quick and neat... and is the standard. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the slim and all too thin and sometimes fail alternatives.

YMMV

Most people - including myself - don't create pdf docs, they just read them.

Even if you create PDFs, there are other creators besides Adobe's. Other creators tend to behave better in producing standard PDFs without the extensions, in my experience. Some are free.

Even if you create PDFs, there are other creators besides Adobe's.

What if I'm one of the millions of users who have Adobe CS? Why would I want to break the chain of communication between the default programs?

I've just never experienced what everyone is referring to. And, we pdf docs that are BIG from the print side of things. Everything is done through Adobe. I don't think the crew there would even consider using a third party application that isn't part of the Adobe package. It doesn't make sense.

Next Topic: Google Warns of Critical Vulnerability

I can see it now. Everyone will be recommending that we switch to Yahoo! or Live. ;)

What if I'm one of the millions of users who have Adobe CS? Why would I want to break the chain of communication between the default programs?

Oooh, I don't know, maybe you care about open standards, autonomy and not having your business dependent on someone else's company unnecessarily? Or maybe you just want to produce PDFs that follow the ISO standard so as many people as possible can read them easily? (I understand that it's possible to produce standard PDFs with Adobe, but it's not usual.)

If you control all steps of your PDF's journey, then that concern and this security problem (like the previous ones) doesn't affect you much, so fine, stick with Adobe if you like. However, if you're using PDFs in the wild outside world, like most webmasters, I think Adobe hasn't been the smart choice for a while now.

It's not the PDF reader that's bloated and slow, it's those antique PCs that some still cling to that are slow.

There's a wonderful 64-bit CPU world running on a high speed bus just waiting to help you with these speed issues.

You won't even notice you have a PDF reader as the page will load faster than you can click OK.

i hope that's "tongue-in-cheek", iB!
i thought i had problems with my <3 year old laptop until i "upgraded" my pdf reader.

It's not the PDF reader that's bloated and slow, it's those antique PCs that some still cling to that are slow.

There's a wonderful 64-bit CPU world running on a high speed bus just waiting to help you with these speed issues.

Funny... Adobe CS4 on mac is one of the few programs explicitly not making use of our 64bit CPUs in any modern mac ... Adobe decided to skip on 64-bit code on the mac and not switch from the Carbon to the Cocoa development frameworks. We'll have to wait on CS5 to get 64bit support on the mac.

i hope that's "tongue-in-cheek", iB!

OK, before people take what I said too seriously, Adobe PDF runs a close second to Norton AV for the most grossly inefficient software award.

My biggest mistake was upgrading to full blown Acrobat which, when loading, was about as excruciating as having teeth pulled. Part of the initialization problem (IMO) is that it appears to preload and check a bunch of support libraries prior to displaying the document instead of just checking them on the fly if and when they're ever needed.

It's a prime example of what happens when you design cross-product cross-platform software by committee.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 3:16 am (utc) on Feb. 23, 2009]

There's a couple of utilities for Acrobat that allow you to configure it so that only the bits you really need are loaded at startup.

Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the ISO as ISO 32000-1:2008.

Ya see, I didn't know that. I thought PDF still belonged to Adobe.

I'm going to be taking a look at some of the alternatives. I'm just so used to me Adobe Acrobat Professional which runs just fine on my antiquated Sony 21 PC-TV with a 100 shot of nitrous.

Look, you can teach an old dog new tricks and with me, it has been happening quite frequently lately. I feel as though I need to get out of the house more often. ;)

The linux system I have here makes PDFs from the print dialogue box. It has done so from day one - I didn't have to add software to achieve it. Likewise the very fast high-performance document viewer which reads the PDF files... loads so fast there's not even time for a splash box.

I did install Adobe's Acrobat reader a few months ago to check if there were any differences (there were none). It took over fifteen seconds to reach splash screen and gobbled up RAM like it was pork scratchings.

I have always found it EXTREMELY sluggish.

There's a couple of utilities for Acrobat that allow you to configure it so that only the bits you really need are loaded at startup.

I guess if they had made the default settings this way, they may have had more users.

let me tell you that this adobe reader problem has been around for close to a year if not more and they are just getting to it now!?!? The problem stems from popups and dubious advertisers. I've been to a website or 2 where it opens up my adobe reader,then downloads a bunch of crap to the system32 folder and slows everything on startup. It didn't happen all the time, so i narrowed it down to having to be one of their advertisers that occasionally is in rotation. But yeah, this is a serious problem because it is a pain to get off. I think i needed to use combofix and combination of a bunch of other antispyware and antivirus scanners to compeletely rid the problem.

edit: I realize the announcement was made in Feb, but that is also way too late for a fix in my opinion.

[edited by: coopster at 6:09 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2009]
[edit reason] removed specifics TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]