BleepingComputer.com: Okayy, Rant Time. Everyone Duck!

Don't get me wrong, Adobe makes some fine products. But for the life of me, I think their programmers are insane.

Up until six months or so ago, I used Adobe Acrobat to view, edit, create, etc. PDF files. And what happens every time you open Adobe Acrobat? It takes 5 minutes to load all of it's fancy schmancy dlls and plugins just so that I can view a friggin PDF!

"No more!" said I six months ago, "this shall not continue!"

So I downloaded Foxit Reader to view my PDFs in. All well and good. You may ask why I'm posting this now, six months after the fact. because even though I can view PDFs in Foxit (without the 5 minute wait for Adobe), I can't create or edit them. So, I have to keep Adobe installed for that purpose. Luckily, though, the need to create a customized PDF happens somewhat rarely, and most of the time I can just use the Bullzip PDF Printer from MS Word or Publisher or whatever. Sometimes though, I need the more advanced features of Adobe. Such an event occurred this very eve. I needed to make a PDF form...

So, I launch Adobe Acrobat, go make myself a cup of coffee while I wait, and proceed to create said PDF. Easy peasy, no fuss, etc. All done. Close Adobe and get a terse message that Adobe needs to download critical updates.

Now, having experienced the Adobe update routine before, I wasn't too keen about it. I declined the request to update.

But Adobe wasn't done yet.

Not by a long shot.

An hour goes by, the customer is happy with their PDF, and I decide to relax with a short game of Hacker Evolution. Midway through level 3, the game minimizes to the task bar (it runs full screen) and Adobe asks again to be updated.

"No!" I shout, worried about the progress of my game which was interrupted. Accordingly, I click the button to dismiss the dialog and go back to my game (which paused automatically, thank goodness). I successfully finish level 3 in record time!

Okay, back to work. Now I'm writing a letter to a past due customer, asking them if they would be so kind as to pay their friggin bill. But wait! Adobe needs to install it's updates right now!!

Now I'm irritated. I fumble through the dialog looking for the "Don't ever ask me again, you stupid cow!" button. I know there is one; not visible, perhaps. In frustration, I click the "Download and Install Now" button. Big mistake.

So here I am 6,348 reboots later with a fully updated Adobe. Big whoop.


I summary, here are some questions for the Adobe Acrobat team:

• Why the heck do you need to load every single possible DLL and plugin that you can think of just to view a friggin PDF?! Why!?
  
• Why is Acrobat the only program in existence that requires the entire computer be restarted after every single update?! Even Windows Updates don't need that, and they're patching the ***-da**ed operating system. Do they need to reboot after ever update? NO! They need only one, big reboot after installing as many updates as were needed. Come on! If you can't figure out a way to patch an application without restarting the OS each time, then you need to change careers; there is no place for you in the programmers' kingdom.
  
• Why, oh why, do you feel it necessary to insert your bloatware into every possible orifice of an OS? I don't want nor need your program to load with Windows, consuming resources and calling home every day in case their are any updates.

There, I feel better now.

Did you know that OpenOffice allows you to save any text as a .pdf file?

While I agree that AdobeReader has become very clunky and cumbersome, I think to be fair to Adobe's programmers it is necessary to remember that the (almost universal) application not only must "fit" many OS versions, but must also perform very difficult and varied tasks (manuals with tons of graphics, for example, as well as simple documents).

Cheers,
John

Amazing Andrew, on Sep 20 2007, 03:13 PM, said:

Amen!

Adobe reader stinks enough just trying to read pdf's I can't imagine trying to make one. I learned how to make pdf files from text files with free programs on the net. Much faster I bet.

OpenOffice and other free programs are excellent, definitely. But I also need to be able to use javascript and such in some of my PDF's. So far, I haven't found a free alternative that'll let me do that. If you know of one, please let me know (please!!)