UKC

You know that lovely company adobe that gives us all this lovely free software like acrobat and flash etc?

they are the reason that every month I have to spend 30 minutes sorting out my elderly mother's laptop after one of their updates has conned my mother into installing Ask f'ing jeeves.

Surely this surreptitious modification of private property by these sort of companies is akin to doorstop sales people pressure selling your gran into buying a £6000 chair she doesn't want?

Boils my piss and they aren't the only major company to do this - I mean you expect it from installing freeware but bonafide software?

Rant over

In reply to balmybaldwin:
I'll preface this by saying "Yes, I agree, bundled free software is annoying".

BUT (yeah, that is a capital "but")

1) Your mother is not buying anything, so she isn't really being fleeced, just a but irritated.
2) Adobe acrobat _is_ freeware. You can tell by the fact that you don't pay for it!
3) I understand that older people are generally less computer literate but they are not, by and large, stupid. Why don't you take an extra 10 minutes to explain to your mother how to uncheck the boxes for all the bundled crap?

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Does anyone still use Acrobat? Appalling lump of bloatware that insists on updating every time you open it.
I suggest Foxit reader. Turn off updates and forget about it.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Agree with Hooo, I'm guessing she's not a power user so a smaller open source pdf reader might be sufficient. Depending on how used to adobe your Mother is though you might be reluctant to change, in which case surely there's a way to disable updates, I've not seen reader update on my laptop in my memory.

I say this having pleasantly endured my Gran's sense of humour as she was on her way out but there's also the small possibility that she's downloading it on purpose

If all else fails just pirate a torrent of the full creative suite for yourself as a means of feeling better.

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Uninstall it all. You don't need Acrobat reader any more. Chrome, Firefox, Word or Open Office will view PDF documents. Adobe have always been one of the worst offenders for keeping everything inhouse and trying to fleece its customers by deception. Sadly, this has proved to be very profitable.

One of the highest grossing pieces of software that is completely useless is Registry Cleaner. Everyone thinks they need it (when they don't) but buy it non-the-less and if you get the free version, they cash in by wrapping a load of malware up with the installer. Win win.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Sounds like she is running as admin which isnt a great idea. Switch from them and then control the updates yourself. Possibly install something like Secunia Personal software inspector which is quite neat for keeping software up to date.

The bit that irritates me about it is the way it is slung in with the security patches. Fair enough to try it when offering new features but not when its get updated every other day to fix bugs.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Next update, click the box of "never check for updates". Then you can manually do it when you want, if you want.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

They've also made it so you can't buy photoshop any more, you have to pay them a monthly subscription in perpetuity for the privilege of using their software.

Feeling annoyed at Adobe at the moment.