Adobe, Now You Suck, Too

I'm a regular user of Adobe Reader, and that's about it. I have Adobe 6 installed, which came with the laptop or bought by my firm, but I rarely use it.

So I'm not surprised to get occasional popups from the Adobe Update Manager telling me there's an update to Adobe Reader, and the upgrades are no big deal.

However, today I got another popup which looked a little different, but it offered me an upgrade to Adobe 9, and without careful reading of the fine print, I clicked OK.

Big mistake.

So, what happens next?

• It placed an icon on my desktop so that I "could resume the installation later if necessary." (That's never encouraging.)
• For Firefox, it required me to include www.adobe.com on the allowed list of sites which could install add-ons, and it required the installation of an add-on to manage the installation of their software. (Thanks, like my Firefox client needs more add-ons.)
• It dropped an "Acrobat.com" link in my Start Programs list, without my permission.
• After automatically launching the MSI script (again without pausing for permission after download), it whined that I had processes running that were blocking the install. (Stupid! I told you to download, not install!)
• Finally, after shutting all my other apps down, and relaunching the installer, I get a fancy pants dialog that doesn't offer to upgrade anything. What they really want to install is Adobe AIR, their new online collaborative suite. And a fricking beta version at that. (Everybody is following MS and Google's lead now - all software will be beta forever.)

Needless to say, I shut the whole load of crap down, and will track down the remaining bits it left behind.

Thanks, Adobe. You suck.