You broke my sarcasmeter.

Surely they’re just taking the mickey? I can easily imagine two software developers in Adobe chuckling as they see precisely how much bloat end-users will accept.

Hey Adobe, have you seen this? http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quicklook.html

apparently, it’s possible to open PDF in less than half of a second, even on pretty old hardware.

Heck, you don’t even have to be OS X snob to do that: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

God I love my new MacBook. Preview (OS X’s included PDF viewer) is an absolute dream compared to Adobe Craprobat Reader. It launches fast and looks native. It doesn’t some with stupid bundled junk and is even preinstalled. Sure I can’t look at PDFs from within Firefox, but I never cared much for that anyway, I always prefered a new window with just the PDF. Now I realize download size (IIRC, Quartz uses PDF somehow and so Preview uses this “for free”) and speed (Apple probably does the same thing MS does w/ Word) aren’t quite fair contests, but still, why try the rest when you already have the best?

I wish they wouldn’t have killed flashpaper. They would be on the iPhone and it is much superior. Reader reminds me of the days when video on the web was with video players that you had to annoyingly download and they woudl jack others file extensions (real player, windows media, quicktime etc).

Then video in flash came along and youtube and a thousand armies followed. When will Adobe get smart and go flash for documents, flash paper is fast. Scribd was smart enough to scoop it up and do something similar with ipaper. It is just flash based documents but they are fast loading.

Chris R.: I use a mac as well, and there’s a plugin to help you view PDFs inside firefox if you want, and it’s faster than Reader (still):

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/06/24/inline-pdf...

Hope this helps!

KPDF should really be ported to Windows.

Ofcourse Foxit is great too, but it is proprietary

–>”Apparently the Mac OS version uses 405 MB!”

Hell yea; if I ever was thankful to Apple for anything, that was most certainly for putting Preview in OS X. I never really needed anything else back when using Tiger; on Leopard, Preview comes with all you need from a pdf viewer. Granted — I would have preferred getting the new version without Leopard, but still…

Quite frankly, I think scribd sucks, but that’s just me.

The closest thing to KPDF on Windows is Sumatra PDF. It’s small and simple.

[...] edit : tocmai am citit un post in care cineva isi da cu parerea despre adobe reader 9: http://blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/. Concluzii: - 33 MB kitul de instalare - 210 mega instalati pe hard! - 15 minute instalarea - cere [...]

I wrote about Adobe’s horrible bloatware a while ago (although you put it much better than me), at

http://bocuma.net/wordpress/?p=7

I was surprised to see only one person had mentioned SumatraPDF yet. It’s an amazingly simple (and free) application that does only what you need it to do: display PDFs.

By the way, your “name” text field has a limit of 20 characters. Why so little? There are plenty of names that exceed this limit, including my own.

Foxit Reader looks great, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be able to print documents as they appear on screen : characters look different and crappy on paper :-/

Maybe there is something useful within these hundeds of megabytes after all ?

[...] is hereby my pleasure to present to you a piece of wonderful ui writing which describes the beloved Adobe Acrobat Reader. Here’s a taste: [...]

Thanks for the review. Funny and serious, let’s hope someone at Adobe reads it.

I love PDF-XChange viewer. Much better than Adobe Reader, & as good as Foxit.

I wonder why you downloaded Adobe 9, when you already know about Foxit. Try that or PDF-XChange viewer. Both are light weight. :-)

You got suckered. I stuck with v7 a long time back due to a refusal of bloatware.

This was funny!

What is Adobe trying to accomplish with such bloatware. Unfortunately I never think to install any of the competitor apps because I don’t use PDFs a lot. But every time I do I feel like putting my fist through the monitor because of the wait. And I’m on a dual-core Athlon with 4gb of RAM and a Sata 300 Raid setup.

PDFs should open in a second or less, maybe a couple seconds for larger ones. Come on Adobe, stop being stupid with Reader. It’s ridiculous bloatware and just because you have a pseudo-monopoly on digitally published files doesn’t mean you have to make it known.

I’m not an Apple fan (I don’t use a Mac, or an iPod, or an iPhone), but Adobe could learn a thing or two from them… KISS methodology, please.

It is quite clearly Adobe intention to stop writing and supporting their reader application. If this isn’t clear to you in the last few releases you haven’t been paying attention. The have release the documents to the format, and are not dissuading people from using the reader by making it huge, bloated and slower! In fact, they can’t believe people are using it, so much so, that now they are clearly just taking the piss. Seeing how much crap they can include, and people will still use it.

This post got sarcasm all over my keyboard.

You Windows folks have it good. On Linux starting acroread can cause X to stop responding. I bet your version of Acrobat starts faster than the Linux acroread too…

For OS X there’s also Skim. It’s free, it’s fast, you can make notes, highlight text etc.

Microblog, now with sarcanol

@Andrew:

You got suckered. I stuck with v7 a long time back

Careful there. Your version is most likely vulnerable to a number of security bugs that can be exploited by any web page you visit.

Upgrade to the v9 goodness or get rid of it, there’s no middle path here.

It could be worse:

http://gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2008/07/adobe_reader_9_is_out!.html

So you’re saying that if I coupled this with iTunes I’d have the perfect software package ever?

I knew an article with this title must be full of sarcasm, or BS.

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/ (1MB)

Recommended. (Free of course)

Sumatra isn’t just freeware - it’s free free (open source free). It’s just over one meg.

I laugh (muahaha, haha, ha, etc.) at the bloatware that is Foxit, what with its useless options and toolbars and extra megs of stuff you don’t really need anyway.

[...] On Windows: After the unpacking, the install process itself took 10 minutes. I could only thank Adobe’s engineers, presuming they were filling up my hard drive with yummy icons, tasty DLLs, and amazing 3D JavaScript add-ons. No matter — the 210 MB it required was there to be used. [...]

Thank you. Your blessed Blog-Entry has cost 5 minutes of my life. Within that time, i could have made an entire Adobe Portfolio including flash videos and animations.

Heh, great sarcasm. :D

Try XPdf?

[...] can read more here and [...]

I stopped using Adobe awhile back. Google will translate pdf pages for you.

210 MB is definitely too big for a pdf reader

Sumatra PDF is great. Downright simple and fast. Software the way it should be.

Hahaha…brilliantly written article.

While I came for the snark, I stayed for the recs to Adobe alternatives. All in all, a time well spent.

Thanks

Maybe Microsoft could learn a thing or two from Adobe. Overly bloated and pompous software is a specific niche in the computer industry and Microsoft has filled that niche nicely for 20 years. Competition is a good thing, right?

The next version of KPDF is called oKular and has already been ported to Windows. See http://windows.kde.org for more information on how to install it using a very simple installer. Please not it’s still beta software.

Adobe updater is another gem… see my song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBkKBeVX9js

Gotta appreciate the quicklook on OS X

[...] Adobe Reader 9! Fur alle, die einen PDF Viewer brauchen, der neue Adobe Reader 9 ist drauen. [...] Immer wieder lesenswert NotebookempfehlungenBits und [...]

There are lots of alternatives to Adobe PDF - I used Foxit for awhile but dropped it after running into several PDF’s that it could not open or would open and then crash. The also free Sumatra PDF reader works on everything I’ve thrown at it.

A post about bloated software using bloated software. I love it!

Wow! Now, that is definitly an amazing peice of S…technology! It reminds me of the SUN Java that installs itself to a mere 130 something Mb on top and on top and on top again of the old versions without ever deleting them. Kuddos!

How old is your PC? Mine is 3 years old and I can start the full version of Adobe Acrobat (not simply Reader) in 4 seconds from clicking a PDF to it displaying, fully rendered, on my screen. I have not used the program once since reboot so this is a cold start.

Since no one else have mentioned it, I must point out how well evince works.

After reading your title, I was surprised and actually hoping for Adobe Reader 9 to be an improvement..

[...] Mark Pilgrim on Adobe 9: “You can’t make this stuff up. And apparently it gets worse if you try to, you know, actually install it.” [...]

Also check out Yep! for OSX.. A godsend for me when it comes to not only reading PDFs but sifting and sorting through the stockpile of scientific journal articles I save in PDF format graphically. It’s amazing, light and blazing quick.

I want to classify Adobe as “The Microsoft of Graphics software”.

Even though I’m a Mac user, I experience the same problems as the author: Adobe butts in with their software when MacOS itself knows how to read a PDF all by itself (hit the space bar on a PDF in MacOS 10.5 and you can see the contents without any special application). Also, Apple’s Preview app shows PDFs in a snap.

One thing that pisses me off is that Safari has a fine PDF view, but Adobe butts in with their own extremely BLOATED plugin with every upgrade. I have to seek out and remove this thing, otherwise I must wait what seems like 10-minutes for it to launch when I want to see a PDF.

I gotta’ say that Adobe is bordering on Viral and Malware with their installs. Looking at console messages during an Adobe install makes me shiver. While I recognize that the installer has asked for my consent, Adobe adjusts things and puts things in locations that I, as Administrator, might not agree with (hence the Safari Reader plugin and, oddly, the Microsoft Office PDF Print plugins that don’t work right).

wait until you test Acrobat Pro. The same as before, twice the size.

[...] microBlog » Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! (tags: adobe reader 9 bloatware) [...]

Seriously, use foxit, the live version doesnt even need installing, just copy onto whatever computer, and it opens instantly with no nags

[...] The PC version is awful too. [...]

[...] Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! For starters, version 8 was a 22 MB download. Version 9 is a mere 33 MB — a whole major version up, and not even twice as big. (tags: adobe humor technology software rant microsoft) [...]

if you’re going to use adobe, version 4 is the best. still supports all of stuff needed to read even the newest pdf’s while loading 8x faster than the present adobe, i think the download is 5megs… i tried every version from 1 to 4, from oldversions.com, and 4 was the only one that actually worked.

Although the Adobe Reader is bigger and bigger. But, did you ever open a PDF Package? At that time you will thing the Adobe Reader is good, I never found what else can open the PDF Package, the Foxit Reader? No! And the PDF X-Change Viewer? No! And some files open with other software instead the Adobe Reader have some compatibility problems, especially in none-English code, some file open with Foxit Reader is really bad, the PDF X-Change Viewer I had installed too, and it is my default PDF Reader, but it also have some problems with PDF too.

xpdf works great, evince works well and pdflatex covers all my pdf creation needs.

Great solution for reading online pdfs without even having to download them: the Firefox PdfMeNot extension.

And here I was looking at my version 8 and saying “Hey, a new version”. You’ve surely increased my interest in downloading the next big thing on the internet!

Actually Kpdf is now even better in its KDE 4 verison, and was renamed Okular. Many KDE applications are already being ported to Windows, so there’s a good chance windows users will be able to use it in the not so distant future.

“Little did he know..”

I don’t feel any sympathy. You chose to install it. Take a stand or stop bitching.

I seriously wish that Evince & KPDF (or oKular) are ported to windows. Acrobat Reader is such a bloatware.

[...] 9发布了，已升级的用户试用过后有啥体验呢？microBlog一篇博文的标题是：“感谢你，Adobe Reader 9!”， [...]

Your missing one of the best features–Adobe Reader 9 allows for embedded ad’s, in PDF’s. AdSense is coming to a PDF near you…dun dun dunnnnnn…

Not to mention the awesome preloader that comes with the Reader! It gives you more time to do whatever while your computer boots!

Are there any other PDF readers that allow PDFs to be inlined in Firefox? Our point of sale system requires inline PDFs and I”d love to have my clients ditch acroread!

PDF is now an international standard owned by ISO. This means anyone can now legitimately write software to print/save/read to PDF.

If you disable all the plugins that start with adobe, it is much faster.

Still not as fast as t’others, but a lot faster than the default startup

So, I take it your glowing review means that you’re a lifetime user? I had great hopes for both Reader and Acrobat v 9, especially after 8, but it’s pretty much the same except for better javascript support and one new feature. It’s bulky and unweildy, but I do prefer 9 over 8, but I use it every day. Most users won’t see or care about the differences.

I am actually surprised you even tried installing a newer Adobe reader. I gave up on them long time back. But maybe it was just for the post :-)

Just a couple of thoughts… Approx half of the 200MB under “Reader 9.0″ are the install files, ie seup.exe and esp’ Data1.cab…Safe to delete after the install complete? Some PDF’s I use I want to convert to other formats for reading on other devices, with Adobe’s I can at least convert to plain txt, Sumatra doesn’t do that and Foxit charge? Background processes, Adobe Updater? Can be turned off in Regestry with “[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesAdobeAcrobat Reader9.0FeatureLockdown] “bUpdater”=dword:00000000″ I beleve. Earlier verisons may be better, ie smaller, but may be vulnerable to exploits. Finally, agree with the author, why the **** is still it so big?

I tried Foxit and after several issues (print, display) I ended up using Adobe again.

Now I installed Sumatra PDF (lightning fast!) and it seams to handle all of my PDF’s. I hope I can get rid of Adobe’s memory hog.

I don’t know if it’s just my computer (top of the line for graphic design), but acrobat 8 professional opens pdfs in about half a second just fine.

Why does a sarcastic post about how shitty Adobe is insight a bunch of apple fanboys to creme themselves about how much they love their macs?

I was soooo close to installing it..lol….Foxit wins again.

I take it you don’t approve :p Neither do I. Sometimes I wonder if they add in dummy data in order to make there executable bigger just to make it look cool :p

I can’t believe someone actually had and took the time to write a whiny article about Adobe Reader of all things.

Please just once, if only for a brief moment, step away from your computer and go outside and see what real life is really about. There is so much more out there than a computer and the size of program files and download times. I know it sounds scary but you will be OK.

Crying about adobe, unbelievable…

You know it took until about version 3 for the Acrobat Reader not to be complete garbage and since then there hasn’t been any change or improvement in its basic functionality, just more and more bloat. I can’t imagine more than 5% of what Adobe Reader does is used by more than 5% of its users, yet everyone suffers from its obscene size and slowness.

Still using Adobe reader 7. It was a relief after Adobe 6; and haven’t felt the necessity to move on.

I disable Javascript and all that crap inside Adobe reader. I feel it is unnecessary.

Hahh .. funny. I scrap Acrobat a longtime ago for FoxIt Reader when I realized all the junk they installed and a program at startup that purported to help acrobat start faster. How lame is that … a small bloated program to help a large bloated program starts faster. It’s sad noways to see all these craps add-ons that you don’t need and don’t asked for included. The worse is iTunes, it won’t let you chose and just install all the craps and 99% of people out there doesn’t realize that they don’t need some of the craps, and didn’t uninstall them afterward.

Hmm, the install took me all of about 4 minutes and didn’t ask me to restart. I also opened a 100mb PDF in less than a second.

Hilarious article! loved the sarcasm… still hesitant to download the newest version. I use Sumatra PDF (a portable version) for when my computer needs the RAM

Adobe Reader 9 has been on my computer for all of 5 minutes, and it is already saying there is a (20 meg) update that needs to be downloaded…. WTF

v9.0 fixed one bug I was experiencing with Vista x64. in v8(w/e) when I would open a PDF it would stay whatever size it opened in; if I would resize the window to be bigger the PDF view would remain as small as it was when it opened (which was never full screen). Other than this there is no difference I see.

Brilliant. I should keep a copy of this in my wallet, you know, just in case someone asks me for an example of sarcasm.

Nicely written, well done! all adobe’s products are bulky, and requires lots of memory to run.. in the era of flickr.com, their new site https://www.photoshop.com/express is also bulky as hell.

That made my day. I never saw I post with so much sarcasm on it. LOL!

Good thing there are good alternatives out there.

[...] microBlog Decompressing is powered by who? Why do I care? Ads on the [...]

Just another plug for Kpdf or Okular — its search is incredibly useful when looking for information in large documents (dozens or hundreds of pages). It will filter the thumbnails of all the pages as you type in your search words, so only the pages which match are visible. The search words are also highlighted inside the thumbnails as if by magic marker, so it’s easy to identify if it’s a proper explanation or just an index.

Not only Adobe’s products are bulky. Most of the new software nowadays seems to subscribe to the idea that modern computers are so powerful that optimization doesn’t matter anymore. I wonder if they use “agile” methodologies in development :)

LOL. Thank you.

I had been using acroread 5 on my PCs it opens most pdfs OK, but not some newer ones. I once installed acrobat 8, took a look at the preferences and had a paranoid episode looking at all the ways it could potentially assist malware to stuff my computer - I uninstalled it fast! When I saw the title of this blog post I thought “this is either irony or Adobe has had a religious conversion”. Piqued my interest either way. I hadn’t been aware of Sumatra before, just downloaded it, really impressed. Glad I read this, not only for that.

[...] http://blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/   [...]

I had been using acroread 5 on my PCs it opens most pdfs OK, but not some newer ones.I am actually surprised you even tried installing a newer Adobe reader and i am a school teacher to inform this versionand also very happy.thankyou sir.

I dread the thought of having to create a silent install job to deploy this filth throughout our organisation. Having to strip out the eBay crap or wade through Adobe’s putrescent web site to find an MSI-only version, then try to disable all the first-run nagware. Fuck I hate your crap, Adobe!

i am a school teacher to inform this version and also very happy.thankyou sir. lat tiem i was used version 6.0 some problems.to my friends inform the ver 9.0 is very use ful u have download this software and use i am also and my student’s.thanking you sir

[...] free PDF Reader. You even thought to put a nice link to Acrobat.com on my Start Menu! Source: [microBlog via Digg] __________________ Vista.x64.FAQ ‡ MP3 Server ‡ Boost.IE.in.Vista ‡ [...]

Which is why I always tell my friends to use Foxit

Adobe Reader is crap product

Dude, I feel I should apologise on behalf of Adobe! I just agree 100% with what you’re saying here and the fact that it is all too common in software AND hardware for Windows and even Linux. Since when do I need to install software with a mouse? Oh that’s right so every time I log on I see a nice splash screen reminding me what company supplied me my mouse, gee thanks!

Needless to say after years of suffering Windows and the many, many things you must do to make it useable and acceptably reliable and all the third party programs you must use to do every day computing tasks (all of which I still needed in Vista) I have bought a Mac. It’s true what they, or at least what I now say: Once you go Mac, you never go back.

And of course Apple’s “Preview” app, included free as part of OSX, reads PDFs beautifully and hassle free.

I remember in college I used version 7, still use it! Works great. I remember trying the new one on my uncle’s computer recently and it just took soo long to load.

Haha very nice…

I hate it when they have all these Adobe Updates every second? what would we do without our updates? how would it be able to open documents without updates??? what will we do??

stupid adobe…gonna remove it…

No thanks.

KDE 4’s Okular for me. :-)

[...] MicroPledge: Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! [...]

[...] by comartslibrarian on July 5, 2008 READ: Thank you, Adobe Reader 9 For starters, version 8 was a 22 MB download. Version 9 is a mere 33 [...]

[...] the consensus in the interwebs these days. Version 9.0 is already out and it is a staggering 33mb download compared to version [...]

[...] ¡Gracias, Adobe Reader 9! [en inglés]blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/ por ibaed hace pocos segundos [...]

Tsk.. Got the shock of my life when the damn reader 9 didn’t install properly the FIRST, SECOND and THIRD time. had to use their handy shortcuts on my clean desktop to download it. can ya believe the thing got rid of Adobe 8, thus rendering my every pdf file unreadable for some heartstopping 10 minutes… ok. you can handle the sarcasm but i try (:

So what’s the first FireFox plug-in for if not for opening PDFs within FireFox? I know! It’s so that they can track your browsing history, cookies, and saved forms and then report back to the mothership at Adobe.

And there is absolutely no excuse for why this POS bloatware takes this much space and takes this long to open PDFs on my dual-core Vista machine when it takes my 4-year-old iBook G4 (1.2 GHZ single-core) less than 2 seconds to open the same PDF. Absolutely, craptaculously ridiculous.

Hey, maybe you could try updating your computer with some more RAM or faster processor. You sound like every other whiny computer user when a new program comes out. If you don’t like adobe there ARE alternative. Quit your whining!

Who uses Acrobat Reader? Foxit Reader.

[...] read more | digg story [...]

owned

down with restricted programs and formats

Great piece. Using FoxIt for a long time for this reason. Will say that Adobe air desktop apps are very lightweight and no ‘extra stuff’ that I’ve found.

It’s great fun to be sarcastic, but the problem with Acrobat may mainly be one of mis-communication. In my own conversations with Adobe, what they’ve been saying quite openly and consistently is that they’re focusing Acrobat on high-end pre-press applications, and leaving general PDF viewing/editing to exactly those third party apps that are being lauded here (e.g. Foxit and Sumatra). The “bloat” in Acrobat 9 Reader is thus very likely composed of pre-press features that casual users would never touch, or appreciate.

I’ve been surprised and saddened by this change of direction, as Acrobat still has quite a few nifty tools that software like Foxit and Sumatra simply can’t touch. (And while I haven’t tried version 9, version 8 loads about as fast as Foxit on my system.) However, I respect Adobe’s decision. I would say, however, that they could do a better job of telling Reader users that they’re using the wrong app.

using dopdf to create pdfs - http://www.dopdf.com - because it doesn’t need ghostscript installed, and the excellent foxit reader to open them - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

that’s all you’ll need for creating/opening pdfs

[...] microBlog » Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! (tags: adobe reader 9 bloatware) [...]

[...] Ben Hoyts wasn’t nearly as impressed as Adobe® hoped he’d be. He shares his detailed experience when he downloaded and installed Adobe Reader® 9. He starts off his description with his excitement to be offered to download the 18.6MB eBay® Desktop software along side the 33.5MB Adobe Reader® 9 installer. He continues explaining his account of all the the various system changes and the space it consumed — a mere 210MB of hard drive space. And Hoyts tops it off with the observation that Adobe forced him to restart his computer and placed an Acrobat.com shortcut on his Start menu. [...]

[...] the rest of this is hearsay as I haven’t tried it myself yet but it seems that the new Adobe 9 has bundled together the [...]

hey, have you tried to install adobe acrobat professional on a mac? it requires the sum of ~1 gB!!!

i love preview.

Wow, sounds great. Installing it now

[...] continues their streamlining process with Adobe Reader [...]

I agree with the bloat issue. I work with a different kind of bloat: my job forces me to write web applications for companies that are pretty: lots of animations, dragging/dropping, cool transitions, and ajax, because that’s what makes the software look like it’s worth the high price tag. This in turn limits the spec of PC it’s able to run on without lagging, causing the client to, in some cases, have to upgrade their company’s systems.

It’s not like the ajax is a problem; slow computers are perfectly capable of handling ajax. The problem is the transitions it has to make when loading something new on the page. If it were up to me it would be very minimal and more compatible. Too bad it’s not up to me.

Oowwwww, please install iTunes now ……

While I laughed heartily at the entry and many of the comments, the fact of the matter is that some SysAdmins like me at a government agency are going to be required to put this software on the systems of the users we support. It isn’t optional; we have something called “Minimum Operability Standards, and 95% of Windows and Macintosh systems HAVE to have a certain suite of applications. As it happens, in some scientific/professional contexts, some folks do use a lot of the features that are decried as bloatware. I’d certainly be a lot more happy if, when installing Acrobat/creating a package to push out, I could check or un-check a list of features to install or not install. That way, I could create customized packages for users with different needs.

Of course, in some cases, I could simply install BOTH the Adobe product, to meet federal requirements, AND I could install a lean, mean, lightning-quick PDF reader when we don’t need the feeatures (and bloat) of Adobe’s product. My systems would be compliant, and when we don’t need the extra features, we wouldn’t have to use them.

I’ve tried several other readers, and I’m trying new ones as they come out, if they’re free (saving y’all’s tax dollars), but the empirical facts indicate that Adobe’s product is simply the best for some jobs. Want to print a 56″x42″ PDF poster on an HP DesignJet 5500 poster-printer? Don’t even think of trying to do it in Apple’s Preview feature; it almost always fail, especially if the file was created orifinally in PowerPoint (don’t even get me started on PowerPoint’s inability to adhere to PostScript standards) possibly throwing $400 worth of photobase paper on the floor. I love my Mac, but Preview is sub-optimal for many tasks, particularly if the file in question is large, i.e., in excess of 50 MB.

[...] plans to lead the ubiquitous SWF file and its associated software. Hopefully it will never be as “BLOATED” as Adobe’s PDF [...]

Wanna write something up about the joys of downloading Microsoft Internet Explorer 7? :)

[...] July 12, 2008 - 10:10 by Gus I stumbled on this tribute to Adobe Reader last night. I had taken the steps of upgrading to the new version on my desktop machine, but [...]

[...] [HUMOR] Thank you, Adobe Reader 9!, blog.micropledge.com [...]

All of you guys unhappy with Adobe Acrobat is due to mis-communication acrobat is targeted for higher end pre press work. For simple document viewing you can use Adobe Digital Edition. Its perfectly suited for general reading needs ~5MB in size. http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

[...] downloading Adobe Reader (!). After installation the thing takes up 210MB of your harddrive (!). Ben Hoyts’ article is especially funny: For starters, version 8 was a 22 MB download. Version 9 is a mere 33 MB — a [...]

I detect a hint of sarcasm in his review.

Flash and Reader 9. All good points but I see that most of you are missing THE important new feature of Reader 9.

THE FLASH PLAYER IS BUILT INTO ADOBE READER.

Yes the download is bigger but now Adobe Reader has a true multimedia playback engine. Does anyone remember Macromedia Director? The big brother of Flash? This incarnation of Adobe Reader will now allow the next generation of the internet to begin. A downloadable FULL SCREEN one - one based on SWF (Flash Media) running inside of PDF in FULL SCREEN. This is the fruition of the 3 billion dollar purchase of Macromedia. TO GET CONTROL OF THE SWF standard and make it run well inside PDF. Let the world of Flash Video, Flash databases and interactive advertising begin inside interactive PDF.

Imagine a world where computer viruses have been contained because the PDF player will not allow them in. ( No more “click to activate” on a flash file to comply with a web browser patent) Flash Videos, Flash Banner advertising, and other SWF interactive media such as database connectivity for shopping carts inside a downloadable PDF. Everything required to play the media is inside Adobe Reader 9. NO BUGS NO PATENT ISSUES.

A world of downloadable eBooks where the author of the book speaks to you from the book courtesy of mp3 audio. And then take the audio out and play it in your ipod.

eBrochures that have virtual realty of the products allowing you to spin them around, video commercials that demonstrate the products and then you buy them right there - right from the pdf catalogue via Flex shopping carts that are connected to credit card clearing services.

After you download the PDF there is no need for an internet connection. Take it on a plane - or to the cottage or to the boardroom and make a presentation. Play an entire flash website inside of a one page pdf. email or FTP it to someone in cuba or china.

How about a Flash based comic book in PDF? Download the comic book - and the characters animate and are interactive. Print it if you want. The Simpsons TV show are created in Flash. How about an entire episode of the Simpsons playing back full screen on your computer via Adobe Reader 9. And it is only 20 megs in size because it’s all vector art and MP3.

Think of a customizable subscription electronic emagazine based on PDF that has the exact same or better interactive Flash Advertisements that appear on websites. And inside that magazine you see music videos, movie trailers, fill length interviews with movie stars and virtual reality tours of exotic destinations - along with the same clear and sharp postscript text are high res 150 DPI pictures that you could always print with Adobe Reader?

Think of downloadable pdf based textbooks where the course material is highly interactive - and fun to use - where kids actually learn by interacting with flash based modules called edutainment - viewing flash video - and then - REMOVE THE MPEG 4VIDEO AND Mp3 AUDIO THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE PDF AND PLAY IT INSIDE THE IPOD and watch it on the way to school in the subway or listen to it while you drive to work.

Think of creating a pdf eNewsletter where your subscribers receive a Rich Media PDF as an attached file to an email. In that newsletter - Flash video streams right into the PDF from a webs server. “Click the eMail to a Friend button” and that newsletter is then sent to friends in China - and it gets through the corporate firewall along with the other pdf business forms.

If you think that pdf is just something used for printing - you are missing Adobe’s vision for the future of the internet. They know their best client - the print industry is dying -the newspaper publishers are all loosing money - the web page is slowly killing them and other print publishers. Just like the mp3 killed the Music CD. People are becoming environmentally conscious and blue box full of magazines and news paper is not logical. The costs of shipping and printing are spiraling out of control.

Steve Jobs the visionary at Apple saw an opportunity and a future of downloadable mp3 music and created a new music industry and it now rules it via iTunes.

Adobe and now Google also see a future of downloadable interactive eBooks, eBrochures, eMagazines, eNewsletters THAT HAVE THE SAME OR BETTER INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE THE WEB DOES VIA SWF interactivity - AND THAT INCLUDES FLASH ADVERTISING. WITH ADOBE READER 9 they now have one pdf application that can play back almost every form of media. Google plans to provide a service where their search engine results provide rich media interactive PDFs instead of web links. Create your custom Rich Media PDF magazine with advertisements target to you. Convergence is now here via Rich Media PDF and reader 9.

It’s unfortunate that the size of the Reader 9 download will scare away many from upgrading - but if you tell them Reader 9 is now flash video enabled and then provide some Flash content in the PDF - you will see like I have that people get very excited about the future of interactive Rich Media PDF.

Thank you Adobe for finally bringing SWF to PDF.

[...] con temática Adobe, a primeros de Julio oí que habían publicado la versión 9. Ok, cuando tenga unos minutos la probaré. Mi gozo en un pozo. Hay versión para Windows y MacOSX [...]

Had just finished building the ‘perfect’ clean WinXP Home system image for a PC being built for my dear mother, when I made the mistake of finishing out the system build by loading such standard add-ons as Adobe Acrobat Reader. My experience was similar to Ben’s, but it went a step further! After bending through the tortured and endless installation (Comodo Firewall keeping me abreast of an endless cascade of files, folders, services, BHOs, ActiveX objects and registry entries), I magically found after the required reboot that the installation had stripped my user account of ALL OS privileges, including the privilege of shutting down the machine. After a few rounds of applying some Linux-based utilities to edit SAM registry settings, had to give up, reformat and reinstall from scratch. THANKS ADOBE!!

Venting is good! Doing something about is better. Everyone let the corporates know, we ain’t taking it anymore. Adobe is crippleware, Vesta is dumbware, Norton is scareware. It’s all crap and we won’t be there for the corporates who use crap.

I downloaded Adobe 9 and though I can view the pdf document, I am unable to print. Any suggestions?

Well, it does not for me. I get blank pages. I uninstalled adobe 9 and installed Adobe 8.1.2 again since this version was working fine for me. Unfortunatley, it also is printing blank pages and jams my printer. I know this is specific to Adobe as I can print everything else without a problem.

Why the heck would I want my pdf reader to show flash, play mp3, stream movies or whatever crap and stuff?!?!?! I want it to show me a document. Nothing else. I have a browser for the rest of those other stuff. I use it to hmm… “read” as in what a “Reader” should do….

[...] als versie 8.0. Kort en bondig? Reader 9 heeft echt wel plezier gebracht in het leven van deze blogger, al was het dan vooral omdat hij sarcastisch kon [...]

Man that’s good to here. I’m going to gow download it right…

Oh hang on. I get it now. That’s clever. I think that’s porbably the most sarcasm I’ve ever seen in one article. Well done good sir.

[...] You can’t make this stuff up. And apparently it gets worse if you try to, you know, actually install it. [...]

[...] over to microBlog’s sarcastic post, “Thank you, Adobe Reader 9!” Then, download and use Foxit PDF or Sumatra PDF. They’re both [...]

Thank you for free Adobe (v.9) PDF Reader it’s a great help for others, especially for developing countries

*** Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I was going crazy with the all too common problem of “missing data cab.1 file” that too many others were dealing with too. I knew this had to be a joke blog - no one but an Adobophile would think otherwise. Downloaded Sumatra and have had no problems. Thanks for the heads up! Sometimes it pays to stay up till the wee hours of the morning.

In my opinion the new version of Adobe Reader software is the global standard for electronic document sharing. It is the only PDF viewer that can open and interact with all PDF documents. You can get it from here: rosoftdownload.com/download/Windows/Adobe-Reader

A lot of us, including BUSINESS PARTNERS, are now looking at alternatives to Adobe Reader. My company is looking at distributing our products on other PDF viewers (like Firefox and others). Adobe has become a MONOPOLY that mistreats partners and customers alike. It was bad enough when they tried to force customers to upgrade every year - now they are trying to force annual upgrades to 3 different Acrobat 9 products/readers all at once. All in the name of revenue. What’s worse - those of us that are Adobe business partners are being eaten alive as Adobe works hard to keep it’s profit margin high in struggling times. The answer isn’t to keep forcing customers to upgrade, UPGRADE, UPGRADE TO 3 PRODUCTS, while putting partners out of business, it’s all about customer-centricity and partner centricity. Once the GREED stops, then customers AND partners will start coming back. Until then. Adobe sucks.

[...] of Micropledge has written an extremely funny and informative post, titled “Thank you, Adobe Reader 9!“, which says it all. Firefox users should especially [...]

i seriously thought there was some praise in this post until i saw the last part about the desktop link. surely no one in their right mind would be happy about another desktop icon? ^^;

anyways i downloaded sumatra instead. thanks! :)

He.. I didn’t even get Adobe Reader 9 installed. When I tried to run the installer it stopped at 99.90%, then got an alert box “Epson Scan cannot be started”. Why on earth is it trying to launch Epson Scan? I came across this post when trying to find a solution. Now I instead installed SumatraPDF as suggested by others. Everything took less than a minute and I already like it…

Okee, just upgraded to CS4 premium design suite for approx 700 euro.

comming from CS2, I hoped that Adobe would have learned somthing. I really hated CS2, so slow, so buggy, so totally unuser friendly. I liked Illustrator 10 better, but for the sakes of my clients I had to upgrade.

Adobe is a unique company in that thay are capable of making their products worse with every new release. This CS4 is on 2 DVD disks, takes about 50 minutes to install and then as it appears the help files are only available on-line. Adobe manuals were allready very bad ( but since CS we don’t get printed manuals anymore…) and these pdf help files are even worse: While we as users are mostly visually oriented graphic or media professionals, these manuals are 95% TEXT oriented.

Anyway I decided this to be my final last upgrade to any Adobe product. It wil get me going for some 3 or 4 years, after that I hope most professional software will be open source.

This company ( like Microsoft and Apple ) are so arrogant and stupid, I dislike them more every day.

[...] Bye Bye Adobe Acrobat Reader Wondering why my new XP install has already filled an 8GB partition, it turns out that Adobe Acrobat 9 takes up 210 MB of disk space. Astonished that a pdf reader could be so large, I googled “Adobe Reader bloat”.  For an entertaining and informative read check out http://blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/ [...]

My C drive was almost full, yet I was stupid and tried downloading Adobe 9, in order to install on my E drive. The piece of s*it installer asked about some directory, I gave an E drive temp directory, but no other alternatives or choices to specify where to put it. Consequently, the POS started installing on C drive without warning. After installed crashed because of “disk full”, it became totally illogical, as I couldn’t figure out why it had still eaten up almost all disk space, nor uninstall or run installer again. Finally, after trying all possible uninstalls, registry cleanups, deleting temp directories, etc. I found 113Mb unused crap it had put in “C:Documents and SettingsDesktopAdobe Reader 9 Installer”

I hope this helps someone else! I also recommend e.g. Foxit Reader instead….

[...] - bookmarked by 4 members originally found by altlash on 2008-12-24 Thank you, Adobe Reader 9! http://blog.micropledge.com/2008/07/adobe-reader-9/ - bookmarked by 4 members originally found by [...]

love your sarcasm.

[...] of the best attacks on bloatware ever, Thank you, Adobe Reader 9!, comes from Ben Hoyt, one of a trio of Kiwi brothers behind Brush Technology. His post is acerbic, [...]

You must have a fast computer because I’m going on 30 minutes and 2 1/2 cups of coffee and the installation is still not done. Someone shoot me,I have more fun watching my fingernails grow.

I wish I would have read this before I started installing this crap in my computer.

Thanks.

Adobe Reader 9 takes up 240 MB on my hard drive, which is unbelievable! And it’s not even a Pro version!

Any sane mind can not help but wonder what Adobe is really doing without your noticing it……

Did ANYONE bother reading this part of the license agreement?

“6.1 Use of PDF Files. When you use the Software to open a PDF file that has been enabled to display ads through registration with the Ads for Adobe PDF service, your computer may connect to a website operated by Adobe, an advertiser, or other third party. Your Internet Protocol (IP) address is sent when this happens. The party hosting the site may use technology to send (or “serve”) advertising or other electronic content that appears in or near the opened file. The website operator may also use JavaScript, web beacons (also known as action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies to increase and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and to personalize advertising content.”

I suggest this is reason enough to uninstall this turkey!

it really does its job…..it gave a blue screen error…nd finally had to uninstall…lookin for some other PDF readr ny sugeestions(win vista hom prem)

[...] convinced? Perhaps I should get a bit more technical… The installer for Adobe Reader 9 is over 40 MB, installed that amounts to just under [...]

OMG. I just updated from 9 to 9.1 and it took over a half hour of hard drive thrashing to finish the installation. I think I will uninstall it now so I won’t get screwed when 9.2 comes out.

Update: I did uninstall Adobe’s product and installed SumatraPDF. Wow, what a difference in speed. PDF’s load instantly and I can scroll as fast as I want. I guess the Adobe developers have been justifying their existence by inventing useless features and forcing unneeded updates. I guess I would do the same if I were them.