Most of the time I'm a go with the flow, best of breed, don't rock the boat kind of guy. However, everyone has their limits and I've recently reached mine with Adobe! I don't hate all Adobe products (like some other large companies ), but there is one that really rubs me the wrong way and that is Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Adobe pretty much invented the pdf so one would think they would be the best suited to provide a reader for their own format. As it turns out, this intuitive sounding argument is false. At least for me and the use cases in the enterprises that I've come across. The list below provides reason why I think most people should abandon Adobe Acrobat Reader and embrace the Foxit Reader, which sucks wayyy less...I promise!
1) The Installer: No, I don't want all of this browser plugin crap, that doesn't work half of the time. I just want the damn installer. What do you mean I have to install all of this browser plugin crap because that is the ONLY way to get your silly software!
2) The Size: This application is HUGE! It the Portable Document Format...so why isn't the viewer very portable? Also, did you know that there is some other acrobat executable that gets run when you just hover over a pdf? Hopefully this code has no bugs...or you'll be pwned by simply hovering over a malicious pdf.
3) The "Features": Nobody uses 90% of the capabilities of their reader. Perhaps they have never heard of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) concept?
4) The Security: Last but certainly not least! Its only April and Adobe has already released 5 security updates this year alone. Most of which were actively being exploited long before Adobe decided to bless us with a patch. Most software is insecure, I get it. But when you produce a product with a ton of unnecessary bloat this increases the security risk unnecessarily as well.
I'm done ranting...(yes, I do feel better now). Thanks for reading. If you have any Reader horror stories or better solutions, please feel free to share...
Yes, change your attack surface! Increase the cost an adversary will incur from researching, developing, and attacking your network. That's the good stuff.
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