F-Secure Says Stop Using Acrobat Reader

[exfileme]

F-Secure is claiming that Adobe's default PDF reader is insecure, and advises Internet users to use alternate programs.

F-Secure Says Stop Using Acrobat Reader : Read more

 

[padraig]

What's the best alternative to Acrobat?

 

[Horhe]

I'm using Foxit Reader. It's very much like Adobe Reader, only slightly faster and much smaller.

 

[haze4peace]

Not to mention a bloated piece of junk. I use Sumatra PDF, It's a no frills PDF reader. All in a little over 1 MB.

 

[shabodah]

I don't understand why we haven't moved away for the pdf format in the first place. It is only slightly less outdated than the fax machine. Adobe also has so much bloat in their software, it slows down the majority of business/office machines far more than it should. To think that anyone thinks reader or pdf formats are secure is just sad.

 

[skine]

According to Slashdot, he suggested readers from http/pdfreaders.org/.

 

[ravenware]

it slows down the majority of business/office machines far more than it should

You need to upgrade your equipment.

I have had speed problems when printing through slow ass print servers.

Newer canon Image Runners and xerox color machine do not have the speed problems like they used to.

I know what mean though, nothing like watching a 200MB PDF spool for an eon whilst trying to hit a deadline.

 

[JimmiG]

I just tried two alternatives:

Okular: Required some kind of KDE compatibility layer that wouldn't install.

SumatraPDF: Worked fine for viewing simpler documents. When I opened a very complex document (a vectorized map of all the city bus lines in my city). Rendering took a very long time, especially when zooming, and the program used nearly 1GB of RAM during the process (but gave it all back once the rendering was completed). Also some effects like shadows didn't seem to display properly or at all.

Foxit: Faster than Acrobat Reader, used slightly less memory. Shadows are displayed properly. It wanted to install some spyware "toolbar" but gave the option to say no (at the expense of some features). I'll definitely switch to this on my Netbook, provided it's compatible with Firefox as a plugin. It struggles a bit with Acrobat Reader. Not sure about my desktop system - I've got a quad core CPU and RAM to spare, and Acrobat has never given me any problems.

 

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]curnel_d[/nom]I'm running foxit as well. It's not just a little faster, it's a TON faster compared to adobe's acrobat. It also has an add on extention to create PDF's as well, for a price. Foxitis just better.[/citation]
+1. Same here. Only reason I have the Adobe 3D installed is because of my CAD software.

 

[jsloan]

wow, switching right now! thx for the article!!!

 

[jsloan]

if adobe acrobat is insecure, what about adobe flash or shockwave, ect. they must be bigger holes! should we uninstall them too, or find alterantives?

 

[michaelahess]

Foxit all the way, once had an issue with compatibility, emailed them, it was fixed in the next release. Awesome company that cares about it's users, even the free ones.

 

[jsloan]

one way to make adobe acrobat is to change configuration defaults. you can disable adobe scripting, you can enable security, you can disable documents starting external programs, ect. and i thought i was secure, ;-)

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]shabodah[/nom]I don't understand why we haven't moved away for the pdf format in the first place. It is only slightly less outdated than the fax machine. Adobe also has so much bloat in their software, it slows down the majority of business/office machines far more than it should. To think that anyone thinks reader or pdf formats are secure is just sad.[/citation]
Agreed.

SVG is a much better format, and it's open so anyone can create a file without buying proprietary software.

 

[Guest]

So we should make something else popular, and therefore the new target for attacks?

“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again”
-BSG

 

[Soul_keeper]

I've never liked PDFs
if I must read one, I always download it and convert it to html
much easier to work with in html format

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]thgek[/nom]So we should make something else popular, and therefore the new target for attacks?“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again”-BSG[/citation]
I'm not saying we should change for security reasons, I'm saying we should change because PDF sucks as a format, not to mention it's closed and proprietary, I don't feel I should have to pay money to save a document in the PDF format. SVG can do everything is can, and it can do it better.

Althought, from a security stand point, Inkscape (the more prominent SVG editor) is much safer as it doesn't connect to the internet for any purpose. Not to mention SVGs are just XML documents that can be made by hand (if you were really paranoid about security).

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

Not trying to be a fanboy here, but I've got XP Pro and Ubuntu on my laptop. In XP I'd been using the traditional Adobe Acrobat PDF reader. In Ubuntu, the default PDF reader is something called Evince.

The difference between the two is like NIGHT and DAY. Ever since using something other than Acrobat, I've shed most of my dislike for PDFs since they don't lock my system up while opening. The problem lies with Acrobat: PDFs aren't (quite as) terrible.

 

[jhansonxi]

[citation][nom]Tindytim[/nom]I'm not saying we should change for security reasons, I'm saying we should change because PDF sucks as a format, not to mention it's closed and proprietary, I don't feel I should have to pay money to save a document in the PDF format.[/citation]

PDF is an open standard: ISO 32000-1:2008 in particular. OpenOffice.org has built-in PDF export that's free.

On Ubuntu Linux I use Evince for viewing PDFs as it is much faster than Adobe Reader but doesn't support forms as well.

PDF is the industry standard for engineering data and manuals. It took 15 years to get there and isn't going away anytime soon. How often do you see XPS documents on the web?

 

[AngryClown]

I've disliked their products since Day One. Especially the unasked-for desktop icons and auto-updates.