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that's a valid rant (the article, that is).

so problems with flash..

1. it doesn't work in opera. well, it did some time ago, but then it just memleaked like crazy and brought whole computer down during a weekend;

2. it crashes firefox. just browsing around the damn youtube crashes ff very often and it's very easy to reproduce for me - i just hve to click on next video while i have previous one still playing a few times;

3. it was very late to show with 64bit and alsa support, and probably other stuff as well;

4. latest version is just shit. it's unusable. see the comments at http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2007/12/flash_player_9_update_3_final.html
it is so unbelievably slow even on firefox (where it sort of works), that many applets just stop redrawing after a short while. .48 version is somewhat better, but it seems to use insane amounts of ram after some time, probably the same old memleak fun... oh, and some things just plain don't work with that version anymore.

so, from my experience, flash plugin on linux is crap, and i have specific testcases that show it either memleaking, crashing the browser, or being too slow to be usable at all.
so i've kinda given up on it. i have removed it for opera, and i have it only for firefox, which i open whenever i want to use some flash crap. i don't feel like allowing it to crash my main browser.

This blog http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ is written by one of the people working on the linux version of Flash and explains some stuff about working on Flash (somewhere in the archives is an explanation of why there is no 64 bit native Flash player yet IIRC)

The flash player VM is horribly broken in many ways.

We have been developing a couple huge applications based on Flash/Flex/AIR and we have run into a number of annoying issues.

For one the flash player will never fully release objects from memory. It's garbage collection cleans up about 25% of the references in memory, but there are very low-level event listeners in the VM itself that hold on to objects, and in-turn those objects have other listeners that hold on to other objects.

Our application starts out at about 80MB of memory usage (which in itself is bad enough) and within a few hours its well over 500MB.

Adobe ignores this and in some cases becomes horribly defensive about it.

Second annoyance is that run-time errors are never reported in the non-debug player. Flash will continue trying to execute the rest of the movie even if it has had a horrible error. To compound the issue AIR does not have a debug version of its runtime so when we receive errors from our clients we have very little go on because by the time the application manifests the error in some sort of visual fashion it might have been hundreds of commands back.

Flex/AIR will never take off unless they fix these issues. The framework is a joke and AIR leaks memory faster than the Titanic took on water.

Vote for this issue: http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-114 Not only is it slow as death on a bunch of chipsets, but it crashes constantly. Very annoying.

I had the "no audio" and flash video froze after a few seconds on Windows XP SP2, Firefox 3 with Flash 9.
Upgrading to the Flash 10 release candidate has completely solved that - Available here.

Yeah, I wanted to say almost the same thing.

My buddy few days ago, told me his flash/firefox is crashing all the time, however.. my firefox(iceweasel)/flash isn't crashing at all.
I sometimes watch youtube for hours, opening 5-10 videos at the same time, everything works like a charm.

It only crashes when I open specific porno tube site, but I think it's not related to Flash, since in opera, it works ok.

Iceweasel ver: 2.0.0.14
Flash ver: 9,0,31,0

According to:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_15507

It's not the latest, but it works... so try that.

Did you try the beta for Linux?

Flash 10 for Linux

There, fixed that for you.

The diversity of Linux makes it difficult. Read the early posts on the developer's blog for details.

I guess I'm just lucky, but I don't have any problems under either Gentoo or Ubuntu, at least not with Flashplayer 9. With the FP10 alpha I had similar problems, but that's an alpha and I was happy it was released along the Win/Mac versions. I haven't tested the RC yet, I only just now found it was out.

Cut them some slack. The situation for Flash on Linux has improved tremendously. I think that shows that Adobe has recognized the importance that market has, and given some time, I'm sure they'll fix the remaining issues.

And yes, 64 bits. I know. But AFAIK there isn't one for Windows 64, either (is there?), so it's more than just a recompile as some suggest.

I suggest the read of penguin.swf blogosplat which is Adobe's blog for posting new version of flash for linux (such as the recent Flash 10 beta or the new alpha)

Please read John Scully's post here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=15&catid=578&threadid=1383125 Couldn't have said it better myself!

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html . See how many platforms supported?

That is how companies work in age of 2008 where people uses 2-3 different operating systems in a day.

I am not your average "anti M$" guy to pick at, I am just telling that kind of actions will result in some kind of reaction, it depends on the money company has and it is not infinite.

I can't comment about the technology since I can't view it!

What's your opinion on Photoshop Elements. It only costs $100. Which is pretty cheap if you are actually going to use it on a regular basis.

I really doubt that Adobe is even remotely interested in porting the whole Creative Suite 3 (now CS4 beta) to Linux. They have their work cut out for them going from Carbon to Cocoa on OS X. It's an insane amount of work for a small user base.

Sorry.

The similarity with Google Labs is the word "labs" this is about user requirements and suggestions rather than fully fledged products. Its about people suggesting improvements and then those moving into development. This means its at a much earlier part of the product development cycle than Google Labs (which starts with a beta or alpha product).

As long as we're talking about labs, there's also Adobe Labs and Digg Labs that I keep my eye on. (Funny, I don't actually read Digg, I just enjoy seeing how they visualize their data!)

While you're right that these sites aren't open to the public, I think it's mostly due to the nightmare of trying to credit people with ideas when you're making billions off these ideas months later. The community might not ... like that.

I will point out that the 'labs' concept just seems to be an indication of how these entities see future development. A similarity between Google and Mozilla is that they offer tons of developer resources on their labs sites. I don't think those two are so different from each other.

Instead of looking at these Labs as inferior, I rather give the companies a chance to show me what they think is bleeding edge and a lot of the time it's a good indicator of innovation. However you look at it, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the labs so you know what your competitor/partner is up to and get a glimpse of the future as they see it.

Or you could use the open-source Flex SDK (which includes all GUI widgets) with the free Flex Compiler Shell to develop Flash content.

We've been developing Flash content without using the Flash IDE for years now. Time to check again?

Or you could use the open-source Flex SDK (which includes all GUI widgets) with the free Flex Compiler Shell to develop Flash content.

We've been developing Flash content without using the Flash IDE for years now. Time to check again?

Actually, although the Flash IDE is closed-source and proprietary, the SWF file format is now a published specification which others are free to implement.

Adobe did this years ago with PDF, and didn't take long to do so for SWF once they bought Macromedia. They want everyone using their formats, and to then compete based on the quality and branding of their authoring tools. It's a good business case in my eyes -- make the pie bigger by opening the spec but keep most of the pie yourself by making the best-known implementation that the most people know how to use.

To compare that with anything Microsoft has ever done, the executable format for Windows is the best example. To get more programmers targeting Windows, allowing more compiler makers into the market easily was a must. If you can only compile programs using the OS vendor's compiler, that feels very much like lock-in. By getting competing compiler and assembler products supporting their OS quickly made it easier for developers to decide to target the platform in its early days.

OOXML, albeit a contentious, oversized, and and only partially specified format, is an example of Microsoft trying to do some of the same things. They're trying to get people who believe in open, competitive file formats to use a format they have a competitive advantage in producing and editing. With Microsoft's past (and some of the gotchas in the spec itself), it's easy to see how that advantage could be kept through much chicanery.

However, the Adobe's got a pretty good record of allowing anyone to come along and make use of the Photoshop save format, the PDF publishing format (which is itself based on PostScript), and allowing JavaScript and ActionScript (both based on the ECMAScript standard, after all (which is based on earlier versions of JavaScript)) to interact cleanly. Now that SWF as a spec is published, it's difficult for honest people working with Microsoft technology to be judgmental about openness.

Well, considering that Adobe claims to reach 99% of Internet viewers with Flash, I would say that flash video is a pretty sure bet when it comes to covering all browsers. It doesn't make sense to have three optional source types for the video tag. There should be at least one mandatory type and however many optional ones as it takes to make all the big browser/web players happy.

InDesign/PageMaker are designed for short documents, doing layout a single page at a time.

PageMaker is no logner maintained. It's replacement, InDesign is up to version three and, while not perfect, it absolutely has the tools to do long documents. I've used it for my one book and it was better than I could have hoped.

I can't say if it's a good replacement for LaTeX as I've never used it.

Another popular option (some would say the defacto standard) for professional layout of long documents is QuarkXpress which is more mature than InDesign.

InDesign/PageMaker are designed for short documents, doing layout a single page at a time.

FrameMaker is designed for huge documents, where you define the rules it should use to typeset the text, and let it do most of the actual layout for you.

The two products are nothing alike.

I was just looking at the minimum specs for running Flash version 9 http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/productinfo/systemreqs/ which apparently needs a P2-450 to run. I'm curious if this 400 MHz CPU would be fast enough for smooth playability? Lack of Flash support would eliminate a good chunk of uses for this thing.

I've read submissions from Adobe that they don't support patents... This was a few years ago, so they may possibly have since changed their minds.

Yep, mind-changing. They opposed software patents back in 1994 or so. However, their current CEO, John Warnock, supports software patents (and has actually lobbied Congress in favor thereof.)

Besides, this is from the About screen of Photoshop CS3:

"Protected by U.S. Patents 4,667,247; 4,837,613; 5,050,103; 5,146,346; 5,185,818; 5,200,740; 5,233,336; 5,237,313; 5,255,357; 5,546,528; 5,625,711; 5,634,064; 5,729,637; 5,737,599; 5,754,873; 5,781,785; 5,808,623; 5,819,278; 5,819,301; 5,832,530; 5,832,531; 5,835,634; 5,860,074; 5,870,091; 5,905,506; 5,929,866; 5,930,813; 5,943,063; 5,974,198; 5,995,086; 5,999,649; 6,023,264; 6,025,850; 6,028,583; 6,049,339; 6,072,502; 6,073,148; 6,084,684; 6,100,904; 6,185,342; 6,205,549; 6,208,351; 6,269,196; 6,275,587; 6,289,364; 6,298,157; 6,313,824; 6,324,555; 6,337,925; 6,357,038; 6,385,350; 6,396,959; 6,408,092; 6,411,730; 6,411,742; 6,415,278; 6,421,460; 6,434,269; 6,456,297; 6,466,210; 6,507,848; 6,515,675; 6,563,502; 6,563,509; 6,587,592; 6,604,105; 6,606,166; 6,639,593; 6,701,023; 6,711,557; 6,720,997; 6,721,446; 6,728,398; 6,748,111; 6,754,382; 6,771,816; 6,775,821; 6,785,866; 6,791,573; 6,803,923; 6,825,852; 6,842,786; 6,844,882; 6,857,105; 6,862,102; 6,865,301; 6,894,704; 6,934,909; 6,970,169; 6,983,074; 7,002,597; 7,006,107; 7,006,707; 7,042,467; 7,071,948; 7,088,375; patents pending"

That seems like a healthy amount of support, don't you agree? ;)

- David Stein

Adobe has an SVG plug-in for IE, but they also have a much better "beta" version (it's been beta for >3 years.)

http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/beta.html

AIR supports linux

The idea that Silverlight is more cross-platform is a strange one.

I'm not sure about 64-bit, but it seems like that's almost moot.

The most important thing is that companies are adopting AIR far more than they are Silverlight.

Nokia devices have something called Flash Lite. I'm not sure how that compares and if it can run animations.

Yes, but the cost of linux is as low as free.

Only if you download it yourself, and spend no time installing and configuring it, or maintaining it in the long term with upgrades and tweaks and fixes and patches. The time spent installing & configuring Linux is certainly a "cost" of Linux, as it is a "cost" of any other operating system, unless you place no value on your time. In my experience with Linux, I spent far more time learning how to keep things running & tweaking settings than I have with either Windows or Mac OS X. So until Linux can offer a better value proposition & user experience at "free" than Mac OS X can at "$119 per retail copy," Linux will not make much headway against Windows or Mac OS.

The hardware linux can be run on is more varied than the Mac. People can leverage their investment in other hardware.

Yes, they can. But then, this is pretty much a non-issue for the vast majority of computer buyers - most people do not buy & assemble a bunch of components into a functioning system. They call dell, or apple, or sony, or acer, or lenovo, and they order a prebuilt system.

That depends on lots of things. If you chose the right platform, it is not much harder to code something for Win-lin-mac than it is to just port to the mac.

And as my sainted grandmother used to say, "If If's and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a wonderful christmas." What it boils down to is, Linux is a small segment of the market. If you are going to spend a significant amount of time and effort porting & testing on Linux, there needs to be a reasonable assumption that that money can be recouped, and by and large, the costs of porting to Linux will not be worth the returns. Because you will see: 1) Linux users bitching that the company didn't support their pet distro; 2) a remarkable lack of interest in buying a piece of software when there's a 'mostly functional' open source replacement for it.

Also, "cloud" computing is having an effect. The more things that run in the browser, the less concern there is over what OS is under the browser.

Which is not, I might point out, a strong incentive for choosing Linux. "Choose Linux, because it doesn't matter what browser you use!"? What about the rest of the stuff that doesn't live in the browser?

It is not all a bed of roses over there on the mac. Adobe has already stopped development on the Mac. If you want to run the next version of photoshop, you had better bootcamp over to XP.

Citation, please? Perhaps you meant to say that Photoshop CS4 will be 32-bit only on Mac OSX, because Apple decided to not support 64-bit Carbon apps - while 32-bit Carbon API is what Photoshop is written with? And perhaps you also meant to include that Adobe has already announced plans for the 64-bit Cocoa port of Photoshop in their CS5 release?

I just would not count out people who like free software and run Linux.

I don't believe I have. I've simply stated that companies & people who are advocates of Linux need to take Mac OS as a very serious competitor to Linux. Linux has generally been viewed through a "Microsoft versus the Penguin" lens, and all the while, Apple has been gaining market share. All those people switching away from Microsoft to Apple are doing so because Linux did not provide them with a suitable alternative. If (and a large "if", I'll concede) Linux advocates want Linux to achieve the "mainstream" success that the Mac has, then distro producers should consider what Apple is doing that's allowing them to gain market share against Microsoft. I think it's more than marketing, buzz, and the Reality Distortion Field, but even if that's all there is to it, they're clearly doing *somethin

Yes, adobe does do it.

You don't "have to go through One Software Company" to view Flash content. Check out Open Screen Project. The specifications for Adobe's Flash formats, SWF/FLV/etc, are available, and anyone can make a compiler or their own implementation of Flash Player. Your SWF content as it stands today is safe for viewing in the future and you never need to ask Adobe for software to view that content again. They may release new versions of the formats in the future, and maybe they'll decide it shouldn't be open anymore, but today's content will always be readable/writable.

A big chunk of flexSDK was opened.

Some of what can be done with Flex can be done with AJAX. But as I understand it, what makes Flash Flash is vector animation. I haven't been able to find a lot of web references as to how well one can create animations with Flex and no Flash. This page claims that one can import still SVGs into a Flex project, but for vector animations, it appears that one still needs some other way of generating an SWF.

"Petersen showed us the C-compiled versions of Lua, Ruby, Perl, and Python all running on the web in secure Flash sandboxes."

that is an lie with secure Flash sandboxes

http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/2008/05/potential_flash_player_issue.html

is like saying secure ActiveX...

The last time I checked, Adobe Systems is about as hostile to open source as possible. They are the seldom acknowledged masters of the "first hit on the crack pipe is free" scheme.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/eula/air.html

Multiple helper libraries licensed under the MPL doesn't change the fact they are promoting another information silo.

And where does the money come from to pay for the degree while they're students?

Same place it comes from for ALL students. I.e. only a teeny-tiny proportion from proprietary software. To imply otherwise is simply disingenuous. To imply it matters to this argument is also disingenuous.

when was the last time a company paid for a support and consulting contract in lieu of a service contract with a proprietary vendor?

The last time a company choose a free software platform. There is no distinction between 'support and consulting contract' and 'service contract.' They are the same thing, just a matter of degree.

When was the last time an end user called Adobe or Microsoft?

Gee, I dunno, how about 10 minutes ago?
http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/photoshop/

This only applies where there isn't a tool they can buy that's adequate.

So what? Most tools are not optimal for the particular task at hand. You can fix that with free tools. You can't with closed ones. What's worth more, time or money? It all depends on the specifics of each case.

Hiring consultants is useful because the prospective hire has expert-level knowledge of the system you're using and has the power to effect changes.

You seem to have some pie in the sky notion that a support contract for free software is the same thing as hiring Accenture. Just about all of your argument is based on that premise. It is false.

http://www.canonical.com/services/support
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/renew/faqs/
http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/supportpolicies/policies-02.html#q02
etc -- all the same style as support contracts for 'proprietary' products.

Paying for support for free software costs more, since the proprietary software has already made money on license sales.

Lol! Which is it - "initial purchase price is an almost-insignificant piece of the TCO" or license sales are significant enough to subsidize support sales?
The real point you missed here is that Free software does not have the same level of bring-up costs to begin with. The cost of the linux kernel has long ago been amortized. So while proprietary vendors have higher investment costs that must be recouped, Free software does not.

A competitive market might drive the labor rate down for support services, but the result of that is detrimental to the FOSS developer,

Sure, that's a risk of the free market. Do you believe in the free market or not? Or do you believe that it is just a zero-sum game to be manipulated for economic benefit of one group over another?

Ultimately your arguments fail the real-world test. There are tens of thousands of software engineers, maybe even hundreds of thousands, who make a living by working on and with free software.

PS. I'm still waiting for a citation to one of those many studies that says Free software depends on free labor.

Huh? PDF IS an open format, the specs is available here and it's been submitted as an ISO standard, and not in the MS Office XML way, but as a fully documented standard with multiple compatible implementations in the wild.

Even IE6 does with the Adobe plugin.

I know its fun to be a fanboy etc - if its not linux its not open right?

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

Also all the api's for flash are publicly documented on the same site.

The SWF 9 spec was linked from the /. summary. Is it really so much trouble to finish reading the summary before posting?

Yeah, I know, I know. I must be new here.

> Somebody please explain how Google is going to link into complex applications in a meaningful way. Using deep links: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:_Deep_Linking

development IDE similar to Visual Studio (circa 2002) that handled python, javascript, and HTML, I would lay down some cash.

Any specific reason you do not want to use Eclipse? There is a rather good python(Just google python eclipse plugin).

For javascript I use JSEclipse. The repository for JSEclipse is at http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/jseclipse/autoinstall or browser to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/jseclipse/

(There are plenty of html plugins but I havent used any of them, so I can't recomand any specific one.

As someone who writes software to view PDFs, I can tell you this is completely pointless, since anything that saves scanned documents into PDF is really storing it as a TIFF image inside of the PDF anyway. The PDF container adds useful features for metadata, and is well documented, so shouldn't add any future-proof issues. And the overhead is probably a few kilobytes.

While I'm all for open source and regarding hardware drivers I wouldn't want it any other way, let's not forget that open source does not have to be pushed around at the application level at the expense of usability. Professional-level applications are critical for the use and expansion of Linux, and proprietary software vendors should be encouraged to develop their software for Linux, not alienated by being badgered to give away their source code. Currently, there is a heated discussion on the Debian list regarding PCB and CAD software availability. One camp (me) is encouraging users to write to software houses and to request that they port their software to Linux, with the other camp rejecting all contact with proprietary software vendors unless it is a demand for the source code. Currently, myself and other engineers cannot use Linux at work because we must run proprietary engineering software, such as Solidworks in my case. For those who want to help, please write to these companies and let them know that we are interested in their software on Linux:

Intuit (Quicken, Quickbooks) http://www.intuit.com/contact/ (requires registration)

Adobe (Photoshop, Flash CS3 Professional, Captivate, Dreamweaver, Studio) http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Sony (Vegas Studio) http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/corporate/contacts.asp

Autodesk (Autocad) http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1073074

SolidWorks http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/SolidWorksOfficeWorldwide.html (requires registration)

Sage (Act!) http://www.act.com/company/contactus/

Nuance (Dragon Naturally Speaking) http://www.nuance.com/help/contact/

hardin-soft (BM-Win Plus (mailing address correction software)) http://www.hardin-soft.com//forms/feedback.html

Daz (Bryce (3D modeling and animation)) http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/support/rnlogin/-/?p_sid=vOwOJN6j&p_accessibility=&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li=&p_next_page=std_alp.php (requires registration)

ArenaNet (Guild wars): http://www.arena.net/contact.php

Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) http://www.ironcladgames.com/contact.html

Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft) http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=0

Firzxis (Civilization IV) http://www.firaxis.com/support/

Electronic Arts (lots of games) http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

My personal problem is that I need Solidworks, so for emphasis I'll repeat their address here:
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/SolidWorksOfficeWorldwide.html

Please write to these companies and let them know that we need their products on Linux. Copy the list and write to one company a week. Thanks.

NVIDIAVIA would be one hell of an ugly name!

It makes that monstrosity Macradobia look like Scarlett Johansson by comparison!

Ok, the code example was truncated thanks to the < > symbols. In hindsight, it wasn't a good example anyway. Instead, I recommend looking at Adobe's presentations, which are full of C++ wonders: http://stlab.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Papers_and_Presentations
And of course the GIL:
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/gil/Generic+Image+Library

Ok, the code example was truncated thanks to the < > symbols. In hindsight, it wasn't a good example anyway. Instead, I recommend looking at Adobe's presentations, which are full of C++ wonders: http://stlab.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Papers_and_Presentations
And of course the GIL:
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/gil/Generic+Image+Library

Stuff like this:

http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/libs/proto/doc/html/boost_proto/users_guide/examples/lazy_vector.html

Generic Programming in general is impossible in C# because of underpowered generics. Unless stuff like

template
void random(Container &container, Accessor const &accessor)
{
    for (unsigned int i = 0; i (i) = typename Accessor::value_type(std::rand());
}

is possible in C#, this argument holds. (Note that this is an artificial example I came up with; for a good example of real-world usage, check out Adobe GIL).

Another example: http://www.gsse.at/multiprogramming/

C++'s true power lies in its templates. Templates are turing complete, meaning that they for a meta language. Using this meta language, I can adapt code to a specific situation. For example, I can have compile-time polymorphism, which is very useful when there is enough information while compiling to choose the actual type. I can have a list of factory class types, and do a call like create_image (img); which gets compiled to the actual creator function ONLY. No virtual functions, the compiler can even inline without problems. Yes, a JIT could detect that function X has been used with the same parameters for 400 seconds, but this way, I can rationalize unnecessary runtime overhead right from the start. Yet another use was to generate code paths that only differed in pixel format type. I wrote a templated version, and iterated over a list of enums at compile-time. This helped a lot in being cache friendly while not requiring to clone tons of code. Using templates, one can write scientific computing code that rivals even Fortran in terms of performance. See: http://www.oonumerics.org/blitz/

I know C# 3.0 has a functional core, and this is wonderful - many problems can be solved much easier and cleaner with functional style. Generic programming and metaprogramming are the things I sorely miss. I would really like to have a language that has all the strengths of C++, minus its weaknesses (most notably C legacy, hideous template syntax, #include files). So far, D is the closest one, but its not there yet. Also, C++ has an ENORMOUS momentum...

For you Tiger users, part of this update also includes security updates for Tiger. See the tech note for details.

Of interest to me was the Adobe Flash fix. That was overdue.

This was a known vulnerability that was fixed in 9.0.124.0 http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/2008/05/potential_flash_player_issue_u_1.html Just make sure u upgrade.

Don't forget that certain Adobe programs, including Photoshop and Premiere, place DRM in the master boot record, which makes it impossible to run TrueCrypt boot-time encryption and have the Adobe programs work.

How exactly is it the worst company ever to supply software for the web.

I don't know about the worst, but they are damn annoying.

A normal company would make it easy to deploy their windows software using .msi deployment tools. Not Adobe.

Acrobat is one of the worst applications for a scripted installation. For some versions I actually had to write a vbscript file to run the regular installer and click on the buttons.

Even for the free flash player you need to create an account and sign a license agreement before getting the .msi installers.