Adobe Reader 9 (and the rest)
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It is amazing what is included these days with some software packages. A simple download of Adobe Reader (Reader!) has become a major commitment, at over 33 MB.
Not only does one get the Reader, included is the AIR platform, so that any embedded content will be playable. The question is, ‘Why is this necessary?’ AIR is fine, but it is not the standard that PDF is. Also, the people who are the target of the PDF format are supposed to be business types – hardly needing much multimedia content – and if they do, won’t they be relying on the heavy hitters, rather than going with a new kid on the block?
Also included (thoughtfully?) is a shortcut to Acrobat.com, just so you don’t lose your way, and accidentally go to that place offered by Brand M, or worse, Brand G.
I must admit, I really like the PDF format, but I don’t think all this added fluff is necessary, and many plainly don’t want it – there are lots of people complaining already.
One more thing – the PDF just became an ISO standard, so the theory goes that anyone should be able to step up and make an identically functioning product – which has not happened thus far. Foxit , Sumatra, and any others that escape me right now do not offer the exact same possibilities, and are not 100% compliant.
Have you downloaded Reader 9 yet? What do you think of the 200+ megabytes it takes up on your drive (I know drive space is cheap, but if everyone takes advantage of that fact, we will all need new drives again, and suddenly 1 TB won’t seem big enough) I haven’t noticed any significant slowing when it comes up, but then it hasn’t been speedy on anything for a while now, so small differences are just that.
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Technorati Tags: Adobe - Acrobat Reader 9 - AIR - Adobe.com - PDF - ISO standard
3 Comments
Tony Poupa
July 7th, 2008
at 8:38pm
Yes, I downloaded it and 33Mb is a bit rude isn’t it?
I am using it to READ PDF FILES…nothing else, so why do I NEED abobe air and the other bloat -ware? Having the option NOT to waste my bandwidth would have been nice. Is installing software that’s not advertised considered malware? Maybe this will make it onto malware lists somewhere…Hmmmm.
FWIW there is an Acrobat Reader 9 lite out there for about 15Mb. I believe this contains only the essentials, so might suit a corporate environment much better. The author of K-Lite Codec Pack has done this and deserves an award!
STOP THE BLOAT PEOPLE!
Erik Larson
July 8th, 2008
at 2:01pm
Hi Guys, I’m from Adobe, thanks for the postings. I wanted to clarify a couple things. We are including the Acrobat.com AIR application to provide the new Create PDF workflow that is now included with Reader 9…that is a valuable workflow and highly relevant to Reader, especially when coupled with the other Acrobat.com capabilities like 5GB of free file sharing, free web conferencing with ConnectNow, and free document collaboration with Buzzword. You can read more about Acrobat.com on our blog http://blogs.adobe.com/acom/), and we will be providing more info about Reader 9 and Acrobat.com soon. We do clearly state that this new functionality is included in the Reader installation on the download page, and if you want to uninstall the Acrobat.com application you can do so without uninstalling Reader 9. Finally, there is a lot more to Reader 9 than just speedy PDF viewing, you can read more on Steve Gottwals Reader 9 blog http://blogs.adobe.com/adobereader/2008/…). Steve also talks about enterprise deployment options for Reader 9 at the end of that posting, and will be providing more info soon.
Pauli
September 28th, 2008
at 9:42am
This in not an excuse. I experienced this and I wrote an email to Adobe support. No answer ! In my opinion Adobe Air can be downlaoded and installed as a separate thing. Even if you decided to bundle it, there is no warning or choice of installing. Why do I need to install it just to uninstall afterwards ? Can you think about this ? It’s much nicer and useful to ask at install time if I want this package. The rest are just excusses to push a trend on a market already full of bloats.