How to be Adobe Free?

[Santilli]

Hi
I'm really sick of Adobe being 'the' player for web browsers. Even using Fedora, I need an Adobe plug for Flash, or Player stuff.

To be honest, I would really like my computers to be Adobe free. I'm sick of the auto up dates, security threats, needing to download a download manager before being able to update
anything, etc..

Anyway to run a normal computing experience, but with out their garbage software?

 

[ddrueding]

Acrobat Reader is easily replaced with the free Foxit Reader. You do need to be careful during installation to opt out of the "offers", or you will end up with crap installed on your machine.

The rest I would be interested in as well.

 

[Chewy509]

The only flash replacement I know of is GNU's gnash.

However it only provides limited Flash v9 support, and is a standalone app, not a browser plugin.

The only way to be rid of Flash is to get content providers to stop using it, or you simply go without Flash being installed.

The only site that readily uses Flash for me is Youtube, and they are underway building a complete Flash-less HTML5 version - http://www.youtube.com/html5

As for other sites, I wouldn't know.

 

[MaxBurn]

Foxit is great, very fast. To create I use CutePDF writer, it is a print to PDF app. My epson scanner has the ability to output PDF. Those are really the only things I do with PDF.

 

[Mercutio]

Sadly, Foxit Reader is also getting rather bloated. I think the installer is up to 6MB now and it spews crap like browser toolbars on your computer, too. I'm giving serious thought to moving to Sumatra.

The Foxit Reader installer that's available on ninite.com doesn't install the extra crap at least.

 

[time]

Installer size doesn't mean much. We covered PDF readers in this thread. Foxit used way less memory than the 4 or 5 others I tried, most of which couldn't even render a two-page view, etc, etc.

I agree the browser toolbars are annoying, but it's not too difficult to turn them off during the install.

 

[BingBangBop]

The problem is not PDF's - there are numerous ways to deal with that: Some better, some worse. It is with Adobe Flash where there is really no good way to avoid currently. Eventually, perhaps HTML5 but that isn't ready yet.

 

[Gilbo]

I use Google Chrome's built-in PDF plugin for reading PDFs now.

You can enable the plugin in Chrome by going to chrome://plugins. Then you just have to set it as your default PDF reader in Windows. You have to do this manually in the file association dialog or via the "Open With" menu. Remember the Chrome executable is installed locally to your user somewhere like:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\

Super-fast, I already always have Chrome installed on my computer, and it just opens PDFs into tabs rather than spewing Windows all over the place. Best PDF reader I ever had.

 

[LunarMist]

The problem is not PDF's - there are numerous ways to deal with that: Some better, some worse. It is with Adobe Flash where there is really no good way to avoid currently. Eventually, perhaps HTML5 but that isn't ready yet.

Exactly. Flash is the most evil stuff. :twistd:
When it is disabled many web sites are not very useable.

I use Acrobat 9 Pro at work every day and it is better than some of the older versions. Sure there are free or cheap apps for basic PDF printer driver needs, but the real deal does so much more. :smurf:

 

[Santilli]

Flash, Adobe Download manager, those are my main concerns.

It is bordering on absurd when you go to a webpage with IE 8 64 bit and you can't play the Flash, since Flash Player only works in 32 bit, and, no working Flash plugin is available for IE 8 64 bit.
You can't use Firefox, since no current plug-in is available for it either. Chrome? Opera? right...

 

[BingBangBop]

I've never had a problem installing flash on a 64 bit system. Chrome or Internet Explorer matters not.

 

[LunarMist]

Flash, Adobe Download manager, those are my main concerns.

It is bordering on absurd when you go to a webpage with IE 8 64 bit and you can't play the Flash, since Flash Player only works in 32 bit, and, no working Flash plugin is available for IE 8 64 bit.

So why would you use the IE 64-bit instead of the 32-bit?

 

[time]

Sure there are free or cheap apps for basic PDF printer driver needs, but the real deal does so much more. :smurf:

Speaking as someone who wouldn't know, I'm curious: what does Acrobat do so much more of?

 

[Handruin]

Speaking as someone who wouldn't know, I'm curious: what does Acrobat do so much more of?

It will consume more of your memory, and slow down more of your bits processing.

 

[Santilli]

So why would you use the IE 64-bit instead of the 32-bit?

Because it came with the system? Because it's there?
Because on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit it has some kind of cosmic symmetry?

 

[Santilli]

Because I don't like running programs in emulation?
Because I'm afraid I don't have enough processor power to run a 32 bit app in windows
7 - 64 bit;-)?

 

[Handruin]

You'd be surprised how many processes are still 32-bit. Open up task manager, click on Show Processes for all users, and then count all the processes that have the '*32' next to them.

In my Win 7 64-bit Ultimate, I count 14 out of 54 running processes in my system. Don't worry about it running in emulation mode unless you're doing something very specific like running a high performance memory crunching application or database server with gobs of memory.