Security & Privacy + Software & Apps

Adobe is apparently testing an auto-updater for Acrobat Reader, in response to the many threats against PDFs that have arisen recently. Apparently, “Adobe’s current updater, called the Adobe Update Manager, pops up an installation window when new patches are available, but too many people are holding off on clicking “yes” and actually installing the patches.”

This is interesting, because on our Macs, we’ve never seen this updater; we’ve mentioned this in previous articles as well concerning Flash. PC World says, “The Refresh Manager was quietly installed on users’ systems back in October 2009, but it is being turned on for the first time during next week’s beta test,” but we can find no trace of such a program; we must therefore assume that this is only for Windows. But we also wonder why it’s so difficult for Adobe to provide an updater that works. Every other software vendor does so, and even shareware and freeware usually comes with auto-updating features.

We’ll keep you posted if we find out more, but, in the meantime, turn off Javascript, or just use Preview for your PDFs.