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Adobe Launches Sandboxed Reader X

Posted by Soulskill on from the barn-doors-and-horses dept.

CWmike writes "Adobe on Wednesday released Reader X, the next version of its popular software that includes a 'sandbox' designed to protect users from PDF attacks. Protected Mode is Adobe's response to experts' demands that the company beef up the security of Reader, which is aggressively targeted by attackers. Calling the sandbox a 'new advancement' in protective measures, Brad Arkin, Adobe's director of security and privacy, admitted it will not stymie every attack. But he argued it will help. 'Even if exploitable security vulnerabilities are found by an attacker, Adobe Reader Protected Mode will help prevent the attacker from writing files or installing malware on potential victims' computers,' Arkin said in a post to a company blog late on Thursday."

15 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Adobe Reader, now even slower! by RingDev · · Score: 2, Informative

    I mean really, Adobe Reader has become one of the worst PDF readers available. It's slow. It hangs the browser. It's constantly getting attacked. And it's a total pain to keep it updated.

    Just get Foxit and be done with it. It's light weight, doesn't hang browsers while opening large PDFs, has a SIGNIFICANTLY better search interface, and so far hasn't been subject to any major attacks/flaws.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    1. Re:Adobe Reader, now even slower! by Spad · · Score: 4, Informative

      and so far hasn't been subject to any major attacks/flaws.

      Sadly not true; it was vulnerable to the /launch "vulnerability/feature" as well as a couple of others. Even Sumatra has had one.

    2. Re:Adobe Reader, now even slower! by EvilMonkeySlayer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Foxit is fine for home assuming you remember to correctly untick all the adware options. But in a work environment (I work at a printers) on average i'd say Foxit incorrectly renders PDFs about 5% of the time, leading to support calls whereas Adobe Readers incorrect rendering is pretty non-existent. (I actually tried switching work over to Foxit a while ago, nothing but support hassle from incorrectly rendered PDFs)

      I'm not defending Adobe here because I think their reader is a bloated pos, but if you're going to recommend a third party PDF viewer then Sumatra is the best, it's light weight, loads damn near instantly and doesn't include a JS engine side stepping a lot of security issues.

      Also, on the major attacks/flaws thing. Actually Foxit has had some seriously bad security issues, you need only google for "foxit reader security holes" or look on explot-db to see them.

    3. Re:Adobe Reader, now even slower! by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is actually an EASY way to get around this, as well as for apps like CCleaner that try to add crap. Just go to Ninite and check what you want installed. They have over 90 of the most common apps and you can even suggest more to add at the bottom of the page. They have made it a total unattended install with NO TOOLBARS on ANY app they have there, be it Foxit, CCleaner, Java, etc. It also makes setting up a new PC with all the basics as simple as "check box, run installer, done" so enjoy!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:Adobe Reader, now even slower! by yuhong · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or use it because it is patched faster.

  2. er, wat? by Entropius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Evince works just fine here!

  3. Re:Air taggs along. by ShakingSpirit · · Score: 5, Informative

    Though it's not linked anywhere, cut-down installs of Adobe Reader can always be obtained from http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/enterprise/

  4. FTP Links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/10.x/10.0.0/

    A few language options available, and EXE or MSI format.

  5. Re:The OS should provide the option to sandbox too by humphrm · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are security / firewall products out there for Windows that do just that, sandbox applications. I won't shill any, but there are free (as in beer) products too.

    I only mention Windows because it's trivially easy to sandbox apps in just about any other OS.

    --
    -- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
  6. For Windows & *NIX variants? You can... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    For Windows, you can use a FREE program called "SandBoxie" (and it's NOT just for webbrowsers, it can sandbox any Ring3/RPL3/UserMode app) http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie , and on *NIX's you can use chroot (of course) & create a chroot jail.

    APK

  7. Re:Adbode pdf browser plugin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    What does it have to do with Internet Explorer? It was Mozilla that came up with the browser plug-in concept and introduced NPAPI with Netscape 2.0 specifically to allow this. That same plug-in API is still used in Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. That predates the integration of ActiveX (or NPAPI) in Internet Explorer.

  8. Just installed it on my Mac... by proxy318 · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Installing this program will take up 415.8 MB of space". Seriously? WTF Adobe, this reads PDFs AND DOESN'T DO ANYTHING ELSE, are you trying to make it as bloated as possible?

    --
    Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
  9. Re:Alternatives by Gorphrim · · Score: 1, Informative

    Ok now I'm being a Foxit shill lol But when you say Foxit "honestly...isn't much better" than Adobe Reader, well that is just way wrong IMHO. The bloat of Reader is incomparable.

    --

    Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
  10. Re:The OS should provide the option to sandbox too by LordLimecat · · Score: 2, Informative

    I ahhhh hate to break the news to ya McGrew, but actually repairing Windows PCs for a living I can tell you the vast majority of Windows infections post XP SP2 is PEBKAC related.

    Hate to break it to YOU, but also doing IT work for a living-- dealing with top to bottom (helpdesk up to routers / firewalls), I can tell you thats a techie cop-out. The VAST (and I mean VAST) majority of infections come from out of date browsers and plugins with gaping vulnerabilities. I ask each and every infected customer to relate what they were doing prior to infection, and verify their claims with browser history and temp file. I see 2, maybe 3 per year that were honest-to-goodness "downloaded and ran cheeseburger.exe" exploits; all the rest went thru Acrobat or Flash or Java (1.5 FTW) or Quicktime or thru an out of date browser.

    Switch your common offenders to Google Chrome, turn off all non-native plugins, enable the Chrome PDF and Flash native plugins, and THEN see how many infections you get (as chrome forcefully auto-updates all 3). I think you will be suprised.

  11. Re:Adbode pdf browser plugin by Ripsaw · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's trivial to set Adobe Reader to open outside the browser. Just clear the "Display PDF in browser" check box on the "Internet" panel of the preferences.