RSSCritical Adobe PDF Flaw Affects IE
By Nate Mook | Published November 30, 2006, 3:31 PM
Adobe on Thursday acknowledged in a security advisory that critical security vulnerabilities have been found in its Acrobat and Adobe Reader programs. The issue affects versions 7.0.0 through 7.0.8, and the company says it is working on a fix.
Acrobat and Reader 8.0, which will be available soon, are not impacted by the issue. According to Adobe, the problem lies in an ActiveX control used by Internet Explorer. Other browsers are not affected, although Adobe recommends manually removing the AcroPDF.dll plug-in file as a workaround until an update is available for download.
Folks not using IE are not vulnerable to this bug, but are being asked to delete a .dll file anyway? This seems like pretty bad advice. Just another reason not to use IE seems more like the better workaround! What I find annoying about Acrobat 7 Pro, besides the fact that it's bloatware and you can't control which feature sets to install, is that it corrupts normal.dot in word if you install the office plugin. I also think it's madness that they still don't have any integration with Firefox! I use pdfFactory Pro to print searchable pdf files from Firefox. Actually, for most pdf print jobs it's amazing with its small file sizes and its incredible speed. Obviously it's not a reader though.
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if you just want a reader, do yourself a favor and d/l foxit. It's light and much faster
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Agreed. Foxit does or did have some printing issues, but I rarely print anything and never print PDF at all, so those were non-issues to me. If you really just need/want a READER, you'll be much better off putting the behemoth that is Abobe in the recycle bin.
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Great so other than the occasional printing, viewing, rendering issues, foxit rocks. *rollseyes*
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Use it. Its shortcomings are much smaller than acrobat.
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I do use it, but I find acrobat the more consistent and trouble-free program. Look, the first time you print something out in color using foxit, and it's for a presentation due in 10 minutes for the shareholders of your company that each bill out at $400+/hour rate, and it comes out splotchy and you don't have time for fun and games, you'll value adobe's printing, rendering engines.
If all you are doing are looking at manuals or anything noncritical, fine, play with your toys. The rest of us need the rock solid ability to do lots of things with PDF's. I don't like some of the directions adobe has taken it, but they do have the ability to read, display, validate, print pdf's down pat, finally, in version 8.
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Fine, so for you, Adobe would seem like the genuinely better choice, and therefore, as you should under that particular set of circumstances, you use it. Most folks aren't under that set of circumstances, though, and as such, may do very well with a different choice.
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I assume you're saying you prefer Acrobat over Foxit, not Reader, right? Because if anyone has had experiences similar to me, they wouldn't use the words "rock solid" and "adobe" when talking about pdf files.
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I'm curious why "most folks" would want less performance and ability when the cost (zero) is the same?
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performance to me is "reliability." If the thing don't work, it's "performance" is meaningless.
Acrobat is more reliable than foxit in any professional environment that depends on accurate PDF viewing, printing, reproduction, workflow. Period. You don't believe me look over at foxit's forums: the people there have problems with the program. Look over at adobe's forums: the people have problems with individual PDF's and activation (yuk, I'll admit) but the program itself works...
Acrobat Version 8, finally, will validate for proper PDF compatibility, and will allow you to repair PDF's that are made by shoddy third party programs. This is a good thing.
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Agreed. Adobe REALLY sucks at writing software and as a company in general. I won't go into all the trouble we have here at my company with them. Let just say, try getting a hold of their support and you will see what I mean.
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You mean Adobe HAS a support department?
Talking to Adobe is like trying to contact aliens. I use several Adobe products and have found it far better to contact fellow users to get answers than to try Adobe. Their knowledgebase is often a joke. Like many software houses these days, Adobe is far more interested on sales than after-sales.
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