Why Adobe sucks

First of all, let me say that there was a time, when I was full of respect to what Adobes engeneer did. They simply wrote good software. Since a few years, I was involved within implementing a patch management for Adobe products. The last months I was investigating of setting up a small patch solution for use within small corporate networks where no user has local admin rights.

This is pain in the ass. Let me tell you why Adobe software has become the number one hole for importing malware to your computer. There are a few thoughts that came into my mind when working on a patch solution on Microsoft Windows.

1. You can’t update this stuff if you haven’t local administration rights
2. You can not directly download minor patches from their homepage in an easy installable way (most minor patches are supplied as msp file, not an executable)
3. Some patches are not for download via Adobe’s homepage, you need to use the buildin update tool.
4. Updates downloaded with the buildin update tool are sometimes larger than downloads from the website. This is because the update tool fetches the msi installer file, not the executable.
5. When downloading Acrobat Reader or the Flash player, Adobe does everything to force you installing an Download Manager (DLM) – a software also is vulnerable, according to heise-online.
6. Microsoft was right when implementing SUS/WSUS for small and medium sized networks. Adobe doesn’t understand its responsibility for his products and his customers.
7. Ever tried to fetch version information about Acrobat Reader from registry? Good luck. Adobe guys changed usage of registry keys from version to version.
8. Adobe, you suck! If you can’t supply us with a good patch management solution, try to write better software.

Just my 2 cents.