New Adobe Acrobat DC – installed with a popup that looks like a virus!

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Couldn’t find anyone else reporting this…

Adobe Acrobat DC worked as usual a couple of days ago.

This morning, there was a popup with just a spinning wheel that showed up over top of the pdf as soon as I opened it. There was no warning, no title on the pop-up or wording of any sort, and no way way to stop it from Acrobat, so I killed it from Task Mgr.

I couldn’t find any reports here, so I checked a few things, ran an AV scan and all was well. Because I had to get my task done, I re-opened Acrobat to see it had been updated to a very dumbed down version without all the menu options, with a message about ‘touring’ the new version.

I did find a menu option to revert to the older version which I did, and was offered a survey on why I didn’t want to use the new version (gave them H**).

2 questions:
1. Is there a way to COMPLETELY stop Acrobat from updating automatically?  I did play around with Task Scheduler a while back, but was unsuccessful from stopping the updates. But want to know (with easy to follow instructions)

2. Is there a recent article with reviews of other free pdf apps that allow viewing, printing, scanning and other simple editing features like Acrobat DC offered? I searched, but couldn’t find anything other than a few comments here and there.

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WCHS

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Thanks for the heads up on this.

I discovered that the new Acrobat Reader DC had already been updated on one of my laptops – now version 2023.006.20380, in place of .20360. As you have noted, its format is very different. And it’s very awkward.

I’ve found a Guide, but it takes too much energy at the moment to wade through it.

I frequently highlight; add text boxes & sticky boxes; and/or draw lines, arrows, rectangles. So, the section in the guide on editing text could be useful in making the transition, were I forced to do so.

But, I am pleased to see the info here that one can revert to the old version. I gave Adobe H-E-*-*, too.

Why do developers always see the need to revamp things so drastically? I’d like to be able to use these apps for my purposes rather than have them use me for their purposes!!

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Cijan, Toa Of Justice

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Cijan wrote:

…Is there a way to COMPLETELY stop Acrobat from updating automatically? I did play around with Task Scheduler a while back, but was unsuccessful from stopping the updates. But want to know (with easy to follow instructions)…

The short answer to your question is YES.

BUT, it involves no longer opening PDFs by default with Acrobat and opening them with another program, such as Edge or Firefox (or your browser of choice if it isn’t one of those two). Yep, many browsers can open a PDF these days, but some do it better than others, and sometimes I’ve actually had to use Acrobat Reader to render a document properly in order to successfully fill out the occasional form.

I can tell you what changes you need to make, but every time you launch Acrobat Reader for more than maybe one actual minute, they’ll be undone and you’ll have to change them back to what they should be to prevent the automatic updating behavior you’re trying to avoid. That’s why I mentioned using another program aside from Acrobat to open PDFs above.

My guess is that perhaps Adobe caught a ton of heat in years past for the sheer number of security vulnerabilities in Acrobat (and Reader, for that matter) that showed up each month. In Reader back then (I’ve never used Acrobat itself, only Acrobat Reader), I seem to recall being able to shut off automatic updating within the program’s preferences. My guess is that Adobe got tired of the heat, so they made it next to impossible to disable automatic update checks and subsequent installations from within the program, which brings us to what you’ve experienced.

If the concept of making changes each time you use Acrobat is OK with you, post back and I’ll then include the instructions. Here’s a hint…you were on the right path with Task Scheduler, but there’s more to it than just that!

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Cijan

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opening them with another program, such as Edge or Firefox (or your browser of choice

A free simple & solid PDF reader is Sumatra.  It’s very basic and settings are easily changed.  I use the portable version.

https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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Cijan

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