Yahoo! and! Adobe! sign! ad-packed! PDF! pact!

Surprised ?

Anyone here that didn't see it coming, given the quasi _monopoly_ Adobe has on PDF ?

Plenty of alternatives

Windoze users can have foxit reader, Linux crowd have plenty of alternatives, like evince.

They're gonna have to update PDF so it breaks the reader, first...

...I knew there was a reason I haven't been allowing my acrobat reader to auto-update itself...

Adobe Reader?

People still use Adobe Reader? I've found that it became pure unusable bloatware several versions ago, and have gone to several other PDF readers long since (which one depends on which O/S and what context).

Since PDF document reader programs are barred from network access on my system, should prove interesting to see if they try to download anything, or if the advert is embedded into the PDF itself when it is created.

Yet another argument for FOSS in my eyes, then such advert placement can be stripped out easily enough.

Emphasis on Optional...

"Unless you actually want your monthly departmental financial analysis review PDF content linked to adverts for 30 per cent off stationery and offers to slash the cost of your medical bills."

Uh, doesn't the article state that the ads are optional for the advertiser and have to be inserted through an extra step in the PDF creation process?

This development is only really of use to information product publishers/ebook hawkers who make their products public/for profit than people rendering PDFs for internal distribution... and a lot of those documents already contain advertising.

Another vote for KPDF

I haven't used (or heard of Evince,) but kpdf is just about the most useful pdf reader that I've come across on any platform. I especially love how it renders pages in stages so that my slow computers can still scroll at full speed, then I can pause and let the page that I want come out clearly. The only downside that I can really see is that I've got to compile the entire KDE Graphics suite to get KPDF, which spends lots of times on apps that I don't have any interest in running.

Just use Foxit instead

You people are still using Adobe Reader, huh?

By removing Adobe and installing Foxit across a 600+ PC domain I:

- improved responsiveness

- reduced support calls

- increased happiness

- made the world a nicer place

And no, I don't work for them.

You can get it from www.foxitsoftware.com it's free, it's fast, it's a hell of a lot smaller than Adobe's shitware, and it doesn't break your file associations, either.

Open Office and PDF's

Question : I use open office to create my pdfs.

I send them to different users, a lot of whom are on dial up and therefore open / read pdf's off line.

Will there be adverts in my pdf's ?

I bloody hope not.

P,