Adobe Acrobat Toolbar Worse than Malware?

Phr3n3tik writes "Adobe Acrobat has long included a toolbar plugin to automate PDF Making from Office Products. Those who found the toolbar an eyesore, or just used it infrequently could always hide it from view. Not so in their new versions, (6, and 7 apparently.) Their new take on the PDFMaker toolbar is getting some users riled up, since it is harder to Move/Hide/Delete/Uninstall this new toolbar than many forms of malware!"

Comments

If it looks like malware...

[Anonymous Coward]

smells like it..

IT IS!

And to think you paid $600 for a piece of malware.

Simple answer:

[Sheetrock]

Don't install it if you don't want it? I don't think you need to add the toolbar.

Re:Simple answer:

[bl4nk]

What about people that installed it when they needed it, but later found out that they did not need it? What if they installed it when they knew it was easy to hide, and then updated their version of Acrobat?

No so simple, my friend.

Re:Simple answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of this whole story was that the toolbar is hard to uninstall, hence the comparison to malware. How are people supposed to know they don't need it if they haven't used it yet.

Re:Simple answer:

[rayde]

having to remove and reinstall is not a "Simple answer." you should be able to hide it as an option.

Where is the line...

[Kimos]

... Between legit software and malware? You don't want the toolbar, it's hard to get rid of the toolbar, it's an eyesore that you never use and don't remember asking for. Sounds like 'XXX Teen Search Buddy' to me!

Re:Where is the line...

[m50d]

If it can't be uninstalled through the standard add/remove programs thing then it's malware. Plain and simple. The only reason not to let your users remove you is if you're deliberately doing something they don't want.

Re:Where is the line...

[mOoZik]

I disagree. The only thing it's doing is making it difficult for the user to remove the toolbar, which is contrary to malware, whose sole purpose is to do some sort of *actual* harm, not simply perceived harm from one's inability to get rid of it. Maybe it's annoyware? ;)

Re:Where is the line...

[justforaday]

Keep in mind that this isn't a "toolbar" along the lines of the Yahoo! toolbar or Google toolbar. This is one of the toolbars that only appears in Office apps. It provides three "Convert to PDF" buttons. It doesn't log anything. It doesn't track anything. It simply converts documents to PDF when you click it.

Re:Where is the line...

[Skrybe]

Frankly I think anything that doesn't provide an easy means of uninstalling should be considered malware. And even if you don't consider it malware for the fact it won't uninstall, it's a pain in the neck when you try to hide the toolbar and it reappears each time you start word, or it positions itself wherever the hell it likes.

And another gripe with Acrobat is that it wants to leave a service running all the time. I might create a PDF once every three months. Why should I need a service running in the background the rest of the time? And if you terminate the service some of the PDF functionality just stops working - no explanation, no attempt to restart the service. It just fails. It's ok for a technically savvy user who can recognise what's going and knows to start/stop it when they want. But for Joe Average he won't realise.

I continually get asked to "fix" friends PCs and they're running umpteen little background services/apps that get used maybe once a month, or less. Yet they all want to stay resident all the time as though the users want to use them every hours of every day.

I wish application vendors would provide options to (un)load these things on demand. Let me choose whether I use Acrobat so much that I want to have that service running all the time. And if I don't then when I want to make a PDF it takes me a few extra seconds while the service loads.

Rant over sorry :)

Subject misleading...

[mOoZik]

By asking whether or not it is worse than malware, you are implying it is harmful. However, in the very end, you suggest that it is only worse in the sense that you can't get rid of it. That is very misleading.

Easy fix

[BlizzyMadden]

I guess the best way to avoid this is to not install MS Office and use OpenOffice instead :-)

Re:Easy fix

[harrkev]

Yes, they are. Note that I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, an office expert.

But, AFAIK, to get new toolbars to pop up, you have to copy files to the hard drive. If somebody else already has the ability to copy stuff to the hard drive, then you have worse things to worry about than Office toolbars.

It is sort of like Fort Knox worrying that somebody might break in and steal office supplies ;)

I'm confused

[plj]

Does this mean that even uninstalling Acrobat itself won't remove the said toolbar?

If does, then I understand whining about it. Not otherwise.

It's About the User Interface

[Delilah Jones]

True, not being able to get rid of a simple toolbar is not exactly malware-worthy.

But let's face it, not being able to customize your own personal environment can be pretty frustrating.

Imagine having a stack of papers on your desk that could never be removed, no matter what you did. Dang man. That'd drive me nuts!

BTW, this discussion of permanent toolbars kind of reminds me of the invasive qualities of AOL. Ever try to get that junk off your PC? It's worse than a virus!

Re:OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Save money on Adobe Acrobat by purchasing a mac? I think a Mac costs more than Acrobat...

That is a kind of malware

[AtariAmarok]

Sorry, IMHO software that installs itself and refuses to let you remove it without herculean effort is a kind of malware.

What is wrong with complying to "uninstall" standards? Or better yet have a checkbox when it runs that tells it to scram or to never pop-up or run again?

Adobe hasn't played nice with Windows for years

[PingXao]

Adobe is a company that just doesn't care that its products fail to adhere to common WIndows GUI guidelines *. I doubt they care about this. One example is their brain-dead "Save A Copy" function. That's just not "Windows", and what it does could have been handled with "Save As". Maybe it's Mac-like and they're trying to retain cross-platform look-and-feel but it just doesn't "feel" like WIndows and that goes for Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, etc. When it comes to the user interface they don't care so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to "fix" something they don't feel is broken.

* other offenders: Macromedia, Autodesk products. You realy notice when a program requires your UI neural pathways to shift gears.

Re:Version 5

[BarryNorton]

That link mostly assumes, as do you, that you're either printing or web surfing. Lots of people usefully use PDF for on-screen-read document exchange (nothing to do with the Web), lots of people have real jobs...

Re:Obligatory Mac elitist response response

[harrkev]

It works for me! You have to think of .PDF as being a form of "electronic paper".

A complete noob trying to save his spreadsheet might be a bit annoyed if he tried the new "acrobat" spreadsheet format, just to find all of his formulas blown away ;)

So having it as a "print" option makes more sense than a "save" option.

If I have to reinstall my OS...

[solios]

... then it's malware. Period.

Also why I don't use symantec products- one too many command line hunt-and-kills for my liking.

Re:Who cares?

[radarsat1]

i love the irony of people who think that the stories on slashdot are totally pointless and stupid, and yet take the time to submit a comment about it. why don't you just ignore it if it's not interesting to you?

Re:not so simple

[justforaday]

You're referring to the web browser plugin. This is the PDFMaker toolbar that appears in Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.

Re:OS X

[b1t r0t]

No. PDF was released by Adobe as a public spec, or nobody would be using it.

The PDF model was chosen to replace the Display Postscript model used by NeXT, which would definitely have required an Adobe license.

Adobe Reader? Never install it... use Foxit

[liveevil]

This is a symptom of the overall personality of the Adobe software. You install it on your machine and it throws it's weight around like an 800 lb gorilla. It's disgusting the number of files folders and registry keys it creates. You'd think the the sole purpose in life of your computer was to be the home of this software. At least Adobe seems to think so. Well, being that pdf is an open standard format, there are many many free implementations of readers, editors, converters etc. out there. For plain old viewing of pdfs I use and recommend Foxit pdfReader: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php It's very handy, fast, and not bloated. I for one will never let adobe get its meat hooks into my computer again.

Re:not so simple

[CanSpice]

Preview doesn't let you edit edit-able PDFs, does it? I had some PDFs downloaded from the IRS that, when downloaded on my Windows box with Reader installed, allowed me to fill in some of the boxes. I don't think I could do that using Preview.app.

Re:Print-to-PDF is an unexpected feature

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Now, circumlocution and saying something that is technically true but sounds, to someone who's not listening carefully, like I'm saying something else entirely

Try "Did I print it from the web? No." Technically true, but most people that equate the internet as being the web won't see that other services also can run over it, like FTP or iDisk or whatever you're using.

But I think your real problem is:

I'd rather educate the ignorant masses so that maybe next time they won't bother me or someone trying to do what I'm doing

beware: a lot of folks don't like being educated. Particularly when they are in the nominal position of authority. So you might be wise to chose your battles.

Re:Adobe on how to completely uninstall toolbar:

[Phr3n3tik]

Great, but your link goes to:
Removing and Reinstalling Acrobat PDFMaker (6.0 for Office 2000 or XP)

is there one for version 7? Since that's the version that sucks the hardest here...

-G

Acrobat = slow and evil

[teknokracy]

This is why I use Acrobat 5. No bloated features, but still lots of functionality. Does anyone else love the fact that Mac OS X can produce PDFs without having to install ANY Adobe products?

Couldn't be easier to get rid of

[geekwithsoul]

Go to Tools>Templates and Add-ins Under Templates, uncheck PDFMaker.dot. It will not load it anymore. Or you could simply leave, and choose to not view that Toolbar. Not sure what the big freaking deal is.

Re:Who cares?

[-O.ster_66]

i love people that just suggest changing your entire workflow. switch from ms office to OOo? no sweat, sure, ok, let me just grab a coffee first.

it ain't always that easy.

I blame MS (of course)

[Dutchmang]

I blame Microsoft for setting the standard for "I now own your computer sucker." You can't load a product these days without it assuming that you are bent over and ready to accept everything the vendor feels like doing. Adobe is only following in the footsteps of Real and AOL and others who install download managers and e-wallets and toolbar enhancements. It all started with MS, which makes you suffer through all their programs instantiating when you start Windows, so they are all "snappier" to load than the otherwise superior products from just about anyone else... this is a social problem not a technological one.

Re:not so simple

[myov]

Preview doesn't always work with some PDF features. I've added a background image then compressed the PDF in Acrobat. Preview stopped displaying all images. PDF's with embedded links also fail to work in Preview.

However, since Acrobat 6 runs like a bloated pig I only use it when preview won't work.