OT: Adobe clandestinely updates its Acrobat Reader to V9

danw

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #1

I live in the world of pdfs and have used Adobe's Acrobat Reader until today.

Sometime today, Adobe sneaked onto my PC and updated Adobe Reader from V8 to V9 without my permission. V9 removes

- tool bar customization
- text selection
- graphic selection

all of which I lived and breathed by.

Bye bye Adobe.

Hello Nitro and Foxit. I'll let you know which is more useable.

Dan

 

ndzied1

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #2

I'm pretty sure I can do all of these thing in V9. However, the options will be interesting to learn about.

 

Brian123

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #3

Huh? I have version 9 installed (9.1.0 to be precise) and it still has all that stuff. I suppose that 9.1.0 might not be the current version...

Just checked, looks like Adobe Reader X (version 10, I guess) is the current version. Still, I can't believe that they did away with those tools. I'll have to install the latest version and check it out.

Brian

 

Jeev

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #4

9.4.1 has all that functionality too...

 

The Plc Kid

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #5

V10 is out now.

 

GeoffC

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #6

Gave up on Adobe a while ago (bloatware)
Foxit is my choice for a simple pdf viewer
while pdf-xchange viewer allows you to edit pdfs http://www.tracker-software.com/
both of these are free

 

dmroeder

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• Nov 30, 2010

• #7

Foxit FTW!

 

Jeebs

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• Dec 1, 2010

• #8

I like to manually update my programs.
Adobe doesn't give me that option.
It looks for updates each and every time it launches.
It causes connection issues when it tries to update and fails to find itself blocked by my firewall.
It crashes FF more often then not.

I've had nothing but problems with Adobe since v6.
Been using free readers ever since.
Currently Foxit is my preferred one.

 

danw

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #9

I'm gonna break my promise to report on both Nitro and Foxit.

I installed Foxit and it does what I need; it has the navigation tools I've used for years and the text and graphic selectors.

I used it a dozen times today and it's a keeper, so I'll beg off on even trying Nitro.

Foxit - highly recommended.

 

gbradley

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #10

Yes, Adobe seems to update Reader more often than needed, but I haven't seen any Clandestine operations yet.
I wonder if you just had an update that didn't go right?

 

creativepaper

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #11

I like pdf-XChange Viewer. Its very fast, remembers were you last were (page 30 of 200) and the zoom/rotate buttons are on the taskbar. It defaults to hand to move as well, which is nice.

Downside is that its harder than Adobe to copy text items.

Very stable and in the 6 months or so that I've been using it, it hasn't forced me to update itself once.

 

bornwild

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #12

adobe reader is ridiculously slow , hogs your ram and takes around 100 mb of disc space so i prefer foxit reader . It opens really fast and takes less hd space

 

danw

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #13

I did have a notice that an update for Adobe's Flash player was available, and I clicked OK.

I didn't read the subsequent boxes word for word, because Flash frequently requires an update. So a request to update Adobe reader was probably buried in one, but that's subterfuge, clandestine and surreptitious - their original request was to update Flash.

Removing navigation tools and text/graphic tools that have been there for years is just unacceptable, but I'm on the Foxit band wagon now.

 

bwhite

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #14

danw,

Funny you mention this because I got an email to my home/personal email account this morning from "Adobe" to go to a hyper-linked site that almost looked believable. The www address had "2011" in it and ended up with a url of .net,,, Adobe is .com . I'm convinced it was a Phish. Anyone else get this email? I'm hanging on to it just in case.

BTW, I'm still using Reader 8.0.

 

Brian123

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• Dec 2, 2010

• #15

danw said:

I did have a notice that an update for Adobe's Flash player was available, and I clicked OK.

I didn't read the subsequent boxes word for word, because Flash frequently requires an update. So a request to update Adobe reader was probably buried in one, but that's subterfuge, clandestine and surreptitious - their original request was to update Flash.

Removing navigation tools and text/graphic tools that have been there for years is just unacceptable, but I'm on the Foxit band wagon now.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure why Adobe Reader updated itself, but they did not remove those features. My install of both 9 and my new install of version 10 had everything you are missing (I installed 10 just to check.) I don't know what happened on your computer, but those features are still there in my installs.

Brian