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

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: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.

Easy fix

[BlizzyMadden]

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

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: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.