Code Away

Continuing from where I left off yesterday (All that is evil, part 1), where I rant on Adobe’s good old Acrobat Reader. There goes my chance of getting into Adobe

Complexity

Just reading about the installation of the latest-greatest made me weep

In short:

• Download a firefox plugin (when using FF)
• This plugin is just the installation manager for Acrobat Reader (more bandwidth wasted)
• Restart firefox
• Download the remaining piece of installer
• Unpacking, Installation proceeds (10 minutes)
• Restart Windows (Back to 1990, Adobe?)

This, for a PDF reader. The latest in killer apps, the next generation cutting-edge software from Adobe. You’d think you were downloading a military secret. Here’s Dale’s take on Acrobat Reader

Reader’s incessant updates (demanding you reset your computer — why?), thundering great list of modules to load, and hour-glass-provoking pauses for thought have given Portable Document Format a reputation for being as welcome as a flatulent camel in the kitchen.

Security

In the previous section, I do not mention the “Critical security updates” which pop-up every few days once you install this program. This is because I believe that updating or finding updates without my consent is a compromise of my own security. It is more of an attack on my privacy than just some stupid complex code built in without much thought.

What security updates ought to be present for a program that does (or rather should do) little more than let users read files? And how critical are they that we are not consulted before Adobe programs phone home as per their wish, claiming bandwidth of our internet connections, and ask us to restart the computer once completed? Why is there no option to stop Adobe acrobat from contacting its server and providing information about my machine and software?

Not many know that later versions of Acrobat Reader allows use of Javascript for users to code snippets within their documents. Now isn’t that creepy. If people want to code, let them use Flash! Why add unnecessary trauma to users with Javascript which, if not rigorously tested, allows for a convenient array of security vulnerabilities?

Alternatives

For Windows, a beautiful piece of software for reading PDF documents (and doing just that, without bundled software, noisy updates and other mischief on our PCs) is Foxit PDF Reader. You can download it here.

For Linux, Evince is good enough. In fact its my favourite since I use Gnome desktop with the default Ubuntu installation. For KDE users there’s KPDF.

On a tangential note, for users wanting to create PDF documents, there’s the fantastic open-source PDFCreator (aptly named). This comes with hell lot of options to configure for folks like me, although the defaults are good enough. So unless you wish for creating PDF forms or something jazzy, the humble PDFCreator will do for most of your tasks.

… in software development can be easily found within the famous Adobe Acrobat Reader. Well, not all evil, but most.

The program, once a must-install after a Windows & MS Office installations, has become increasingly bloated since version 5, encouraging users to go for light and easy alternatives

Why my rant against this poor, harmless, standalone piece of software? Because 2 out of those 3 adjectives are not even valid anymore.

Bloat

Risking redundancy claims from netizens who update themselves with articles and blogs, here’s yet another rant on the big bloat. Make that Unnecessary big bloat.

Here’s a list of old Acrobat Reader versions from oldversion.com. Check the size of each installer.

Old Versions Available of Acrobat Reader

Acrobat Reader 2 (1.4 MB)
Acrobat Reader 3 (3.9 MB)
Acrobat Reader 4 (5.2 MB)
Acrobat Reader 4.05 (5.5 MB)
Acrobat Reader 5.0 (8.4 MB)
Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 (8.6 MB)
Acrobat Reader 5.1 (13.0 MB)
Acrobat Reader 6.0 (15.9 MB)
Acrobat Reader 6.01 (16.3 MB)
Acrobat Reader 7.05 (31.5 MB)
Acrobat Reader 7.07 (20.2 MB)

So the size of the installer has increased 15 times, for a software which accomplishes very little new features. (and 20 times, if you look at version 7.05).

Agreed, some improvements in rendering, fonts, security, accessibility have been there. But the installer size feels as if you are just bundling 5-6 different applications together, instead of progressing on one piece of software.

I add 2 of the latest versions, not present in the above list

Acrobat Reader 8 (22 MB)
Acrobat Reader 9 (33.5 MB) (with an option to bundle additional 19MB of Free eBay Desktop. Search faster, bid smarter. Yayy)

Correction in the line above: The option is not to “add” the eBay desktop, but to “remove” it (Its ticked by default). So the default installation stands to be a good 52.4 MB.

The very size if the installer makes me shudder. So I did the smart thing. Not to install. But here’s a verdict of the poor guy who did

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.

[...] It started in a minuscule 13 seconds, plus the time it took me to skim their poetic and beneficent license agreement.

210 MB of space on disk for a PDF reader. Just because memory is cheap.

I’m not done yet. More rants in my next post.

Security for our daily life: Joke of the day (responses are extremely spirited and funny)

Thanks to Pradnyesh for the link