PDF’s…they’re everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great format and I love to use it. You can share, you can secure, you don’t have to worry about the recipient editing it (as 80% or more users only have viewers) and most of the time WYSIWYG with a PDF – i.e. the recipient doesn’t need your fancy font collection to view it in the way you meant for them to view it. The main drawback to it – PDF usually is powered by or is synonymous with Adobe. This brings me to my point. Adobe’s install and update process/procedure.
First off, let’s look at Acrobat reader since 9.0. The first installer of 9.0 not only put an icon on my desktop for Acrobat Reader, but also for Acrobat.com. The Acrobat.com icon/shortcut disappeared with the 9.1 release, but the desktop icon still remained. That icon alone is the bug bear of my life and today Adobe, yep, I’m on my soap box.
EVERY other installer in the world (or ok, 99% of them) have a tick box saying “add a desktop shortcut”. Why can’t you give us that option? Then not only to add insult to injury, I install Acrobat Reader and it has to be updated…Interestingly enough, security experts estimate Acrobat is going to be one of the largest attacked pieces of software in 2010 (more so than Microsoft technologies)…Here’s the quote:
Based on the current trends, we expect that in 2010 Adobe product exploitation is likely to surpass that of Microsoft Office applications in the number of desktop PCs being attacked
which means more updates now than ever. Any ways, back to the point. If it is one of the most attacked pieces of software in 2010, that means even more updates than we have already, and with each update, guess what…That bloody desktop icon reappears. WHY!?!? Well, Adobe, your silly little icon antics has driven me away and now I’m using another utility – FoxIt Reader – which happens to do all of the main jobs your software does, is less of bloatware and guess what, they let me choose if I want a desktop icon or not.
You can learn a lot from your competition (by the way, I unticked it before I clicked Next).
Possibly related:
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#1 by Elmar on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 00:16
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And by the way: who would ever in his lifetime want to have a desktop icon to start acrobat reader…???? There’s no reason what so ever to start AR if you’re not going to read a document, so you will always start it by clicking a document. I’m even wondering what it does in my start menu…
#2 by AdamV on Sunday, February 28, 2010 - 10:21
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I agree, it’s nuts to have a desktop icon for something which is almost always launched via a file association.
I guess the reason to keep one in the start menu might be if you have a badly-created pdf that won’t run in Foxit and you need to start Acrobat Reader and use file>open (for people not comfortable with right click> open with…)
Unfortunately after about version 5 or 6, Acrobat reader just kept on getting more bloated. I am told that 9 is lighter than 8, but I haven’t checked.
I also find it hard to understand why I have to download a downloader to run an installer to install the installation. It just seems horribly layered for no reason. What happened to downloading an installation file, keeping it handy on a fileserver or USB stick and just installing by double clicking whenever required, even offline?
An extra +1 for Foxit is that you can install from an MSI, which is great for proper corporate deployments using Group Policy for example, or scripting it.
(obviously if you are cloning whole machines then that’s a different matter, but even then having an MSI installer makes it less painful to remove and reinstall for upgrades)
A -1 for some eLearning products (and I am looking at Microsoft here from a recent experience with some courseware) which check for the presence of Acrobat specifically before letting you unpack the files you need. Very bad form. Checking for a valid file association and path to whatever reader you have installed ought to be the way to go here (or just warn the user but let them override and go ahead anyway).
#3 by Josh Jones on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 21:33
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Not only does it install the desktop shortcut when it is installed it installs a desktop short cut every time it is updated and adobe does not support comulitive updates either.
It is very anoying because FIRST; Nobody needs a desktop short cut to adobe reader. SECOND; Desktop icons slow the start up of your pc THIRD; You have to be an administrator to delete the stupid thing.
SEND ADOBE FEEDBACK:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
#4 by Tony on Sunday, July 4, 2010 - 16:08
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I am relieved that I am not the only one who hates Adobe for their intrusiveness. Who the hell do they think they are? I have been responsible for thousands of Adobe installs – I have now reached the point where I will be responsible for a similar number of Adobe uninstalls.