Adobe Responds to Reports of Their Spying

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Proof positive that reading the terms of service is always a good idea. Too bad none of us ever read those damn things. :(

Adobe hasn’t addressed all of the evidence against them, but they did admit that they were gathering info from users. They won’t admit to scraping my library, but they did admit to tracking a user’s activities. Adobe claims that it was covered by the their privacy policy and by the TOS for the app.
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•Doesnt read article, Deletes Adobe reader app•
 
Tgrove said:
•Doesnt read article, Deletes Adobe reader app•
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I should take steps as well to avoid being spied on but then I'd have to throw my laptop and smartphone into a lake. I feel like I'm being spied on from too many angles to manage.
 
I wonder what kind of shit they're monitoring through their Creative Cloud app.
 
Is there a replacement for Adobe flash Player?
Id like to dump their shit right now!
 
Megalith said:
I wonder what kind of shit they're monitoring through their Creative Cloud app.
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Exactly why I'll never upgrade past my copies of CS3. Perpetual subscription idea was bad enough.
 
techrat said:
Exactly why I'll never upgrade past my copies of CS3. Perpetual subscription idea was bad enough.
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The big problem is that they make just enough changes every year, that if you need to receive/send files to others, you either have to upgrade for big $, or pay a subscription every year. Otherwise you run into odd formatting problems where files won't view or print out correctly, even if the other person saves in the older format.

Kind of like school textbooks, where they re-arrange a few pages every year, making just enough changes that's difficult to use the older books.
 
Plot twist: Their information gathering probably doesn't work right either.
 
Tgrove said:
•Doesnt read article, Deletes Adobe reader app•
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Good gods man, why would you use it in the first place? It's bloated and epicly slow; trying to read a service manual with images in Adobe Reader feels like you're loading it through a dial-up modem...

Foxit Reader is what I usually use.
 
Using EULAlyzer can help. It at least narrows down the reading by searching for key words and displaying those sections. It's from the makers of SpywareBlaster, and it's free.

The legalese needs to go. Reading a EULA shouldn't require the assistance of a team of specialized lawyers. :mad:
 
What are you supposed to do either way? It's agree, agree, agree or don't use the software.
 
Does anyone remember when Adobe didn't make buggy bloated POS software? Yeah, me either.
 
DarkStar02,

Thats what i've always thought. Some people say you must read the TOS and blah blah. But what good will that do? No one... absolutely no one.. with half a brain actually accepts any TOS of any semi/major software release these days. Because they all want your left nut and your first born *and* have the right to change their mind at any time regardless. Something seriously monumental has to happen to bring these ridiculous things down to reality. But it'll never happen.

OK so i dont' agree with your mining my data and logging my every move. I want to use the software... not be mined. Where can i click to not accept these terms and continue to install? No where. You either use the software and agree to be anally raped or you dont use it. And that isnt an option a majority of the time (because there are either no alternatives or if there are... they are like pulling teeth).
 
Oh i forgot to mention. I'm not sure what everyone does nowadays but assuming alot of normal computer users just run with defaults in Windows that no one blocks outgoing traffic via a firewall. Considering Windows defaults just lets anything and everything go outbound... its no wonder every single dodgy developer is trying to phone home willy nilly. Its just ridiculous that there aren't laws for this. Every one needs to kick and scream more.

So do people here actually filter their outgoing traffic or just let it all "hang out"? :)
 
Ditto the Foxit hate. Last time it installed .NET 4.x client without even asking. After an hour I gave up trying to manually clear my registry of the residual crap left after uninstalling Foxit and I just did a complete image restore. What a PITA and wtf ever happened to software development standards?
 
Draxanoth said:
Good gods man, why would you use it in the first place? It's bloated and epicly slow; trying to read a service manual with images in Adobe Reader feels like you're loading it through a dial-up modem...

Foxit Reader is what I usually use.
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Foxit is terrible from a design and publish POV. So is eCopy and the rest of the shitware that isn't Adobe.
 
HoffY said:
So do people here actually filter their outgoing traffic or just let it all "hang out"? :)
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I've been doing that with all of the software I install on OS X. As soon as I install something that has no business going outbound, Little Snitch pops up telling me it is trying to and I deny it, forever. Funny thing is everything these days is phoning home. Apple even had something called APSD phoning home all the time. Blocked that shit, too.
 
I've been using Firefox (web browser) to view pdfs on my local drives + online for about a year now.
I monitor new connections my PC makes, block incoming and I dont see anything naughty happening.
My trust for Adobe is thin because I always saw unsolicited connections being made, which is why I stopped using it.
 
OK phew! I'm glad there are some people sticking it to these fkg "developers" that make everything phone home for no legit reason what-so-ever! hell i don't even have anything pop up if its going out. its just all blocked unless i want something to go out! Take that fkrs! ;)
 
Adobe must also sit wondering why they have over 15 billion Adobe user IDs issued. You know what I mean.
 
Nuance handles my pdf needs nicely. At 1/4 the price
 
Draxanoth said:
Good gods man, why would you use it in the first place? It's bloated and epicly slow; trying to read a service manual with images in Adobe Reader feels like you're loading it through a dial-up modem...

Foxit Reader is what I usually use.
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Adobe Reader's conversion tool for $2 a year is a godsend. It converts with perfect results every time I need it to, and that's about 4-5 times a day. I can use my Reader tool account on my iPhone too. Also, Reader X and XI has improved considerably when it comes to opening rapidly. It's not slow as it used to be.

But yeah, this watching user activity is bad. Bad Adobe! No! Go to your crate Adobe!
 
illli said:
what do you guys think about nitro pdf reader?
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I ditched Foxit a couple of years ago and have been using Nitro PDF reader ever since. So far it doesn't try to upload stuff to "the cloud", at least as far as I know.
 
Megalith said:
I wonder what kind of shit they're monitoring through their Creative Cloud app.
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Exactly why I quit using CC and went back to CS6.

nutzo said:
The big problem is that they make just enough changes every year, that if you need to receive/send files to others, you either have to upgrade for big $, or pay a subscription every year. Otherwise you run into odd formatting problems where files won't view or print out correctly, even if the other person saves in the older format.
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Or you find out if you're running a different version and save down (or ask them to do so). A lot of this is no longer an issue.....psd's have been backwards compatible with no specification necessary dating back to (I think) CS4 or CS5, and most of the Illustrator stuff warns on open, but opens regardless. InDesign is the only one that flat out refuses to open anything newer, and in that case, you just have them send you an .inx file.

re: PDF readers, Adobe still prints the most true IME but I rely on PDF-XChange Viewer myself. Sumatra is lean but it has practically no features other than open and print; quite often I'm taking a PDF page and saving it as an image file, which is something that PDF-XChange does (that Adobe Reader doesn't).
 
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