F-Secure Says Stop Using Acrobat Reader

[VinDSL]

Here's the situation...

SOURCE: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Ad...Malware,news-3828.html (Tom's Guide)

F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen told the press on Tuesday that consumers should not use Adobe's Acrobat Reader, but rather switch to an alternate application to read PDF files...

(A)ccording to Hypponen, 47-percent of the targeted attacks in 2009 have exploited holes in the program; six vulnerabilities have been discovered in Reader so far (SA29773) this year...

Hypponen went on to warn that Adobe Reader is the new Internet Explorer (6), referring to a time when security experts told consumers to switch to another browser due to huge security holes in Microsoft's browser. By getting rid of Reader, he said that consumers will reduce their risk of acquiring malicious code and infecting the PC.

"That's my advice," Hypponen said. "I don't expect a Christmas card from Adobe."

Alternative Readers: http://pdfreaders.org/ (Free Software Foundation Europe Web Site)




Here's the cure...


I decided to wipe Acrobat Reader, AIR, and Adobe.com off this (Win2K Pro SP4) machine.

Since I use Okular Reader on my Linux installs, I decided to download the Windows version...

LoL!

First of all, it installs KDE (I choose 4.2.2 stable) in Windows - didn't even know KDE for Windows existed. Then, I installed the Graphics Package, which includes Okular. Finally, I went into Windows Explorer, right-clicked on a .PDF file, told Explorer to open it with Okular, and clicked the box to associate .PDF files with Okular from now on.

All I have to do to view a .PDF file is click it, and it opens in Okular - and Okular opens MUCH faster than Acrobat Reader! Plus, it looks better.

Heh!

Don't you love computers? Never a dull moment...

BTW, Okular handles all sorts of formats - not just .PDF files! http://okular.kde.org/formats.php (Okular - Document Format Handlers Page)

Now I'm wondering which other Linux Packages I might like to install on this Windows machine...




Here's the proof...

Wanna see it in action?

http://vindsl.com/images/Okular-on-W2K.png (Screenshot of KDE Okular on W2K)

 

[Rubycon]

Yeah but can it do this?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Yeah but can it do this?

Er...

Bad link!

Let's try this!

 

[boomhower]

I haven't used it in quite a while. I am a huge fan of foxitreader

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: boomhower
I haven't used it in quite a while. I am a huge fan of foxitreader

I use PDF Download in Fx which, of course, brings up the default proggie (in this case Okular).

The thing is... this ain't my machine, and they prefer (gulp) IE6! :Q

I digress (since it's my thread)...

Talking about browsers... I spent 12 hours yesterday fixing a friend's broken Vista x64 lappy. It was getting DNS errors whenever they went to a secure page - https, sftp, ssh, whatever.

Turned out to be the remnants (and dependencies) from the OEM trial version of Norton they thought they had deleted- the Symantec updater, and so forth - which were still present.

Anyway, during the process, I updated everything using WU, 3rd party programs, hardware drivers, etc.

Along the way, I installed Explorer 8... OMG! It turned their x64 lappy into a sloth! Man, was that thing slow!!!

After messing with it for a few hours, I went back to Explorer 7 and life was good!

For the life of me, I don't understand what ppl see in Internet Explorer - and that applies to Acrobat Reader as well.

Hell, Reader was occupying 224 MB on this machine (without the language pack). Are you kidding me - for what? So it can get hacked! :disgust:

 

[Colt45]

yeah, reader has been bloating to all hell. dropped it a couple years ago.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I stick with reader 5.1 with search, it's the most non-bloated version, and existed before Adobe got the stupid idea to allow embedding any other type of media file inside PDF files.

Google for AcroReader51_ENU_full.exe , that's the installer.