big silver hair enthusiast @llaevateinn - Tumblr Blog

uninstall adobe acrobat. it is malware. it has been malware. these aren't opinions: acrobat meets the definition of malware.

it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually

it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity

this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need

adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups

i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:

open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable

no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever

not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof

cheers

andmaybegayer

Firefox's built-in PDF.js viewer: does everything you could want from a basic viewer, fast enough search, and can now do annotations for filling in forms and such

KDE Okular: is a decent viewer and can also do basic annotations, and is so not-a-toy that you can even download it on the Windows app store.

LibreOffice Draw: I don't ever really like having to open this but if you have to edit a PDF in detail it does work, and doesn't just vomit up a bunch of polygons when you give it text to work with. Better as an authoring tool than an editor.

cazort

So...it's actually WORSE than this post lets on.

For at least 4 years now, Adobe Acrobat has scanned to detect antivirus and anti-malware software, because it knows that its behavior runs afoul of their monitoring, and then adjusts its behavior to avoid detection when doing shady things:

See this Reddit thread.

Also, all this behavior is threatening to users' security and privacy in multiple ways. Not only is it bad on its own, but Adobe Reader has, for years, been a vehicle for hackers, viruses, and other malware to get access to people's computers and data.

When Adobe Reader itself starts evading and bypassing security measures, and this becomes accepted as the default, it will make it much easier for other bad players to use it as a way of taking control of your machine. A compromised application with lots of privileges and ability to evade oversight by antivirus programs is much more dangerous than an arbitrary compromised application.

If you care at all about security or privacy, never ever install Adobe Reader.

I've been exclusively using free alternatives to it for around 18 years now, and I very rarely run into any compatibility issues and the last time I did was more than 5 years ago.

#yikes #just uninstalled that shit #also why the fuck does a program that i just need to read pdfs have to be over 1gb #git outta here

omgcheckplease

John Rich & The Big Picture, my first prose novel, is complete, and you can read all of it now on okjohnrich.site until July 25th. ✏️

omgcheckplease

Putting it AO3-terms to honor its original male character/original male character origins:

Rating: Explicit Category: M/M Fandom: original work, Check Please! Relationships: Tyler Hughes/John Rich Additional Tags: enemies to friends to lovers, idiots in love, slow burn, everyone knows but them, a surprising amount of garfield lore, new york city, the-devil-wears-prada adjacent, viral youtube romance, love in your early twenties, romcom emphasis on the comedy words: 99,000 chapters: 21/21 (complete!) comments: 1,562 comments!! hits: 171, 709 >>> start here ✏️

#i am once again asking #EVERYONE PLEASE READ JOHN RICH AND THE BIG PICTURE #john rich and the big picture

bookpdf

oh this phrase is not going to leave my mind for a solid week at least. obsessed with this collection of words

bookpdf

le doohickie in question btw:

molabuddy

really specific trope i like that i feel like can only be explained in a diagram

funny-tik-toks

kragehund-est

problematic rage gap. one partner tries to bring nuance and understanding to a tough situation. the other wants to blow up the earth about it.

picsthatmakeyougohmm

hmmm

toast-potent

i don’t need to say it

bingomann

don’t say anything. just reblog this if you’re thinking of exactly that thing when you see this picture

writterings

it's really funny teaching rhetoric to college freshmen because i explained ad hominem to them via example by arguing with a student over something silly (i kept insisting 25 minutes was a quarter of an hour, not 15) and then "insulted" her instead of addressing her argument (i said she doesn't have a college degree whereas i have two, so of course she'd be wrong - which the whole point is that it's a stupid insult but not something that's actually mean) but she got soooooo mad so even when i stopped the exercise and explained that she was indeed correct (15 minutes is a quarter of an hour). like she was still fuming. so i validated her feelings on that, complimented her, and even reminded the class that a college degree doesn't mean that a person is smart/right. and then i went on to explain that, yeah, dirty arguing techniques like that are meant to make you so unreasonably angry that you can't respond or that you lose your cool, so your opponent looks like they win by default. the student i was arguing with then just said that it seemed like professional ragebaiting and i was like. well yeah that's correct.

and then this kid, this one kid who is always very eager to answer questions and is always kind to his classmates, raised his hand looking a little bothered. now for context, i emphasize thinking for yourself in my classroom, even if that means disagreeing with something i say and he has echoed some stuff that his parents clearly have told him before. he's not a bad kid or an asshole, he's just an 18 year old with conservative parents who otherwise knows nothing about politics. but he just looks so bothered after i explain this about dirty arguing techniques. big frown on his face. looking unsure. when i nod at him to speak, he says, in a very quiet voice, "didn't -- didn't charlie kirk used to do that?"

and i was like. well yes. yes he was famous for stuff like this.

and then the kid looked down and was just like, "oh. i thought he was just really good at debating. i never watched his videos though, only clips. why would he do that?"

and that coincidentally lined up perfectly with the rest of the lesson, which was on propaganda

dancinbutterfly

this? is why conservatives hate liberal arts education

fleetwood-mac-andcheese

itsbasil

you put those tags on this post where they belong

heyfruitcake

Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Non è la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe però già impegnata a bonificare i

ignitelimelight

They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government