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Latest Adobe Acrobat Reader Update Silently Installs Chrome Extension (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The latest Adobe Acrobat Reader security update (15.023.20053), besides delivering security updates, also secretly installs the Adobe Acrobat extension in the user's Chrome browser. There is no mention of this "special package" on Acrobat's changelog, and surprise-surprise, the extension comes with anonymous data collection turned on by default. Bleeping Computer reports: "This extension allows users to save any web page they're on as a PDF file and share it or download it to disk. The extension is also Windows-only, meaning Mac and Linux Chrome users will not receive it. The extension requests the following permissions: Read and change all your data on the websites you visit; Manage your downloads; Communicate with cooperating native applications. According to Adobe, extension users 'share information with Adobe about how [they] use the application. The information is anonymous and will help us improve product quality and features,' Adobe also says. 'Since no personally identifiable information is collected, the anonymous data will not be meaningful to anyone outside of Adobe.'"
Certainly trustworthy! "Since no one but people at Adobe designed this, certainly no one in the wide world of hackers, exploit finders, and data sifters would ever be able to decipher and extract anything interesting from this data. I mean, we're just sending this meaningless data back to Adobe for shits and giggles, it's useless information! By the way, I heard that anonymous means that we just don't record your IP address right?"
>This extension allows users to save any web page they're on as a PDF file and share it or download it to disk
I'm pretty sure chrome does that all by itself
When you open chrome It will note the new extension and ask if you want to enable it or remove it.
Yesterday or two days ago, Chrome prompted me if want to install something from Adobe, most likely extensions and I clicked no since I did not like those popups. Now looking at chrome://extensions/ - nothing like that there to see.
What gives?
The good news is when I fired up Chrome, it asked me if I wanted to remove this unwanted extension.
Just your IP address and a list of every site that you visit. No biggie.
I don't use Adobe anymore, PERIOD.
I can view PDF with Chrome already, why should I have both installed?
The extension is also Windows-only, meaning Mac and Linux Chrome users will not receive it.
Why are Mac and Linux users treated better than Windows users? That's not fair!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm amazed people still put up with this crap when we have options. I haven't had Adobe Flash or Adobe Reader on any of my machines. I have a small company of about 20 employees and none of our machines run any of these programs nor any other proprietary bits. Not that I'm aware of anyway. Not even the hardware components except for BIOS/hard disk firmwares/keyboard/lcd controller firmwares/CPU micro code/and intel management engine firmware.
Now instead of having to browse the internet until the PDF reader gets hit by one of its countless exploits and install the malware on your PC, now it comes with it integrated into a neat package.
'Since no personally identifiable information is collected, the anonymous data will not be meaningful to anyone ***outside of Adobe***.'"
Implying that anybody inside Adobe can?
I thought it was odd this morning when I logged onto my Windows 7 work PC that the first thing I saw upon opening Chrome was a dialogue box asking permission to install a new extension from Adobe that I hadn't asked for. I declined, of course. Now I see my suspicions that it was official spyware have been vindicated, surprise surprise.
You can kill all the processes, disable all the services, delete all the scheduled tasks, and replace all the updater binaries with dummy files and write-protect the folder and the fucking thing will STILL figure out a way to nag you to update.
(And then when you finally give in and update just to shut it up, youtube and twitch break)
I wonder if it has a standard 'use Reader to open PDFs in browsers' option. Chrome will sometimes not print random elements from PDFs. They display fine, but when printing some parts are just blank. This may be useful for use and it might be an easier solution than 'save PDF to desktop, open in Adobe and print' or 'open in IE when you want to print'.
Thank you for your input, Herr Drumpf.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Adobe went over to the darkside when they made Windows their primary target platform and shuffled Mac to a back row. Back in the golden days Apple were their best pals. Strong Adobe on Windows means the creative set have migrated. Also that Adobe has gone evil.
https://www.sumatrapdfreader.o...
Small. Fast. Loads DjVu and some E-Reader formats as well. No spyware.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Since no personally identifiable information is collected, the anonymous data will not be meaningful to anyone outside of Adobe.
So give everyone access to all of the data. Let's see which persons can and cannot be identified and what's meaningful and what isn't.
Surely if companies are secretly installing software on our computer that collect data without our consent, they must be breaking a law. If not we need to get this data collection shit stopped by making the practice illegal because every time we stop company pushing it on us, another company pulls this crap again.
It's underhanded and shows ill intent, not to mention gross ignorance of security issues.
foxitsoftware.com
Foxit hasn't pulled this crap on me, and work well for pdfs.
"Members of the secret metadata trust.. we have Sheramil's Acrobat usage information right here! Let's see.. documentation for mom's smart tv... a pirate copy of Frank Herbert's 'Dune Encyclopedia'... uh... D.Gingery's book on metal lathes.. very well! How do we monetize this information?" *crickets*
I have installed windows updates and after the restart I started chrome. I noticed that the hamburger icon had changed to some other shit and when I clicked it sure enough it asked me if I wanted to activate or remove acrobat chrome plugin. Of course I told it to go fuck itself. Fuck this intrusive bullshit. Kudos to chrome at least it didn't do a silent install and warned me about the bullshit adobe was trying to pull off.
Many of Adobe's actions should be illegal.
I updated Adobe CS6 on someone else's computer. Adobe tried to make the computer a server for Adobe. There were more than 15 other attempts to take control of the computer.
Chrome does that now, but Google could make Chrome behave differently and not ask, simply accept the new plugin (with its spying turned on by default) without prompting the user.
Ultimately this allegation of "smarts" is not under the user's control, it's unsafe and a minor stroke of luck that things happened to work out the way they did for now. It doesn't strike me as smart to dismiss this as a settled matter, just as it was not smart for Microsoft Windows 10 users to believe that the OS privacy settings were being obeyed when they weren't.
Digital Citizen
Can we have some perspective here? We're talking about Chrome people. Google. The masters of collecting data. If you use Chrome your data is no longer your own already. So what are you complaining about?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
What if you don't have Chrome installed?
Say has anybody used the Foxit reader? How compatible is it?
This extension allows users to save any web page they're on as a PDF file and share it or download it to disk.
Chrome has had these capabilities built-in for years. Go to the Print window and choose "Save as PDF".
In the Chrome browser, just got to your extensions, find the Adobe extension, click on options and uncheck the box about sending info to Adobe. You can also disable the extension or click on the trash can to remove it. Hopefully one of these options will be useful to everyone unless Adobe is really sneaky and even if one takes the drastic measure of removing the extension there's enough left on your system to do the reporting work.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
This is a virus! 1.) I did not ask for it. 2.) It installed without my permission. 3.) It spies on me! This just pissed me off I am so tired of companies doing this!!
Then why force the material design on Windows???
PII is an American legal term - in the US there is hardly any privacy on the internet. US companies are free to collect IP addresses for US citizens
In the EU and relating to EU citizens, "personal data" is any data that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. An IP address does constitute "personal data" under EU law, if there is a legal means to find out who the IP address belongs to. See
http://www.whitecase.com/publi... for details.
Moritz
Yeah, I saw this, and I sad...
NOPE
Stupid Adobe thinks it's ok to mess with my browser silently. Screw you Adobe.
"The extension is also Windows-only, meaning Mac and Linux Chrome users will not receive it. "
Which is good, because if you use Mac you don't need Acrobat in the first place. In fact, the built-in PDF reader includes a number of of the editing features that Adobe users have to pay for the "Pro" edition to get.
Chrome prompts for permission before an extension can install and lists what the extension is requesting access to.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Thankfully, my chrome gave me the ole heads up. But, sketchy for Adobe to think this was a good idea. Then again, they do try to install McAfee all the time. Should have seen this coming.
I hit block when Chrome told me because I assumed it was malicious because..you know....I didn't ask anything to install it.
Not java but it was (is?) installed with flash player if you don't uncheck that box FROM THE DOWNLOAD PAGE (it do not ask if you want it when installing - it just install chrome without asking). WTF? Normal google/adobe behavior I guess but I found it pretty dirty from them.
It's been years since I allowed one to be installed on any machine under my control. Because, on the machines not under my control, the damned thing sucked so many processor cycles and crashed so often that ... well, why would you use Adobe to read PDFs?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I've come to associate Adobe with imposing itself anywhere it can get the chance, updates downloading, services, startup items, anything it can slip by. I couldn't even count the wasted time Adobe has cost me, distracting me in the middle of important things.
Look what happened with Microsoft Windows 10. People are wary of it because of the subversive privacy implications. But with the backdrop of the operating system incessantly imposing itself onto Windows 7, people are more distrustful of it than ever. After so much reckless disregard for people's time, people just want the punishment to end already. All of this occurred while they had the most stable operating system they released to date, Windows 7 up and running. Now you can find countless threads on the internet about finding an alternative operating system, come the end of the decade when Windows 7 support ends. People end up in threads like these scrambling to get away from these punishments that never end by infamous offenders.
Adobe Acrobat was a good reader for PDF which I would have been more than happy to continue using, but that is no longer something I'm willing to do because anything from Adobe my system is now configured to say that I don't trust them. Simply put, they're a pain in the neck and there are other PDF readers out there. People are not endless reservoirs of patience.
The moral of the story is SO rudimentary. That if a company shows disregard for their customers, they will be shown that they are not as indispensably omnipotent as they would have liked to have believed.
I uninstall it successfully but it quickly comes back silent and uninvited.
As this started to happen as I was (and still am) struggling to get rid of OZIP unwanted search bar, I'm wondering if the Adobe (which after all is a resonnably decent company) is not in fact OZIP masquerading as Adobe????
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.