These are facts, NOT a justification for bundling or a "Flame" on your post:
Adobe Reader, Shockwave, AIR and Flash Player are “freeware”. That means you PAY NOTHING for them.
Adobe PAYS developers to make & update them and they offer them to the public WITHOUT CHARGE, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That requires server space, bandwidth, and maintenance of files as well as hundreds of links, on dozens of webpages, throughout this site.
Adobe offsets those costs by including “bundled” software with downloads and updates, for which the third party developers reimburse them on a “per download” basis. You can argue and protest all day long about “corporate greed” and how “Adobe makes enough money from their paid software that they don’t need to do this”, but the facts are: YOU DON’T RUN Adobe (neither do I), and YOU DON’T DECIDE how they make their money or how much is “enough” for them to offer millions of downloads a week worldwide in dozens of languages… for nothing.
Add to this, Adobe IS NOT the only company that engages in this practice, and it’s NOT something that just started. Oracle systems includes Google Chrome and Google Toolbar with Java, which is a NECESSARY component for Windows, Mac and Linux. VLC Media Player includes AVG Safe Search and AVG Toolbar with their downloads. Roxio Media Creator includes Norton Security Scan with updates, Corel includes McAffee Internet Security with WinDVD updates. Those are just a few examples. This practice has been going on since before Windows XP was released. Failure to notice it before now DOESN’T change that.
There are Adobe updates that install McAffee with no “opt out”, and they’ve been reported, but if Adobe management’s intention was to remove those updaters, they’ve made no effort to do so to date.
This is a user-to-user forum, with very limited employee participation, and NO ONE from Adobe management participates here, or even reads these pages, to my knowledge.
• Posting angry, inflammatory or profane comments here won’t change the practice.
• Threatening to boycott Adobe here won’t change the practice.
• Uninstalling all Adobe products on your computer in a juvenile tantrum won’t change the practice.
• Threatening frivolous litigation here won’t change the practice.
• Personal attacks on other forum members here won’t change the practice.
There are links to download FULL installers of Reader and Flash Player which are posted hundreds of times every week in these forums. These contain no bundled software, and are easily bookmarked for future reference. Additionally, instructions to disable automatic updates are posted throughout these forums. Utilizing both will allow you to take full control of what you download and install. If manually updating your software is NOT something you choose to do, then you need to accept that the updaters will occasionally (and without warning or opt-out) have something you don’t want, and you’ll have to remove it yourself when it’s installed.
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