Adobe turns evil
16 Jan 2005Okay, so I just tried to download Acrobat Reader 7. I’ve got no reason to pay for the full product, as free alternatives suffice for all my PDF creation needs… maybe Abobe is getting upset and deciding to trash what was previously the best cross-platform document sharing format ever.
Well, whatever. I’m still using PDF documents, and probably will be for a while, but I’m going to rant about it anyway. So there’s an installer, right? Okay. Preferred method of installation: Evil Adobe Download manager. Option for normal download? Yup. Why didn’t I use it? Call me stupid or something… I’ll get to exactly why.
So last week some time I was at Steve’s office, and he said that Acrobat Reader 7 is loads faster than 6. I’m not sure if I started dancing then and there, but it was good to hear. Today, I bother to do something about it on this laptop (which, incidentally, has just had a long-overdue RAM upgrade, and still loads Acrobat 6 like crap), which involved going to the Adobe website and following the links, then filling out three dropdown menus to present me with more choices.
Language: English.
Operating System: Windows ME
Connection: Broadband
Wonderful, it’s offering to let me download Adobe Reader 6. Again. I know I’m running Windows ME and that’s a crime against humanity. Right now, I’d argue that Adobe download software and internal policy is a crime against humanity. Not only would it offer to let me download an old version of software, I also had my choice of spyware ridden toolbars and some crappy photo management software which they’re pimping like it’s actually making them money. Scary, no? The first hit is always free… no, I’m not a cynic. Never.
Josh trots off to Download.com to try and grab the latest Reader “illegally”, just for the hell of it, to see if it’ll work on this computer. Download.com, searches, finds Acrobat Reader, downloads Acrobat Reader, discovers it’s actually a crappy download stub (hey, I’m on snappy cable here, I don’t *do* checking file sizes!), which then proceeds to download (unannounced) three different pieces of software. “Ummmm.”
It finishes downloading these mysterious three components. Installer one launches. Yahoo! Toolbar? No thanks. Really, no thanks. No, really, take that toolbar away from me before I do something untoward with it. Crappy Adobe Photo management dru… err… software? No thanks. Really, no thanks. If I cared that much for your crappy software, I’d ask for it. As it stands, I’m perfectly happy with the most excellent Irfanview on Windows, and miscellaneous web-based photo management applications.
FINALLY. This is the part where I have the Acrobat installer itself run. But no. “I don’t like your Operating System, you anti-consumerist pig. Go grovelling to our buddies Microsoft and upgrade, quick smart. And buy some new hardware from some vendor that Microsoft approved so your new OS will run, okay? That’s right. In the meanwhile, we’ll punish you by making our reader software continue to run just as slow on your crappy four-year-old OS.”
Recommendation: Use plain text, or (if it’s absolutely necessary) valid (X)HTML, to send me documents. I’ll receive them in a better mood. (This comment endures only until I move into the new house, get my Linux desktop back, and can resume reading Adobe PDF files without even needing to see their product name. Ahh, Open Source.)