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The Size of Adobe Reader Installers Through the Years
- Havoc 1y agoWorst part is the browsers are now better anyway at filling in forms and signing etc while adobe crap tries to upsell you for that
- emmelaich 1y agoYes. I don't when it happened exactly, but Chrome does a great job. I remember trying a year or so ago and it couldn't. Or badly.
- RockyMcNuts 1y agoWhy don't the labels on the points match the scale? Looks like a chart crime scene
- patcon 1y agoYou're looking at the software version number I think. But yes, it's confusing
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ginko 1y agoThe labels on the points are version numbers.
- RockyMcNuts 1y agook, that makes sense. not indicated, and the general idea of dataviz is to communicate clearly. when you have a number, what it represents should be noted, and the units. if I see a number in that context, I assume it's calling out the value displayed. the x axis is also a bit off, would ideally plot the date of the release and use a proper time axis. a title is also good to have, maybe a data table. sorry to be cranky but those who are downvoting , try to be clear, learn some standards, or stay away from publishing charts. you can even ask AI to clean up your code to conform to a standard. Soft skills are important for an engineer. You need to explain the work in clear, persuasive language and dataviz. or you can be, I'm a super-smart engineer, you figure out what I'm trying to say, I don't need to worry about making your eyes bleed. crikey. https://www.datavizstyleguide.com/ https://www.datavizstyleguide.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Better-Data-Visualizations-Scholars-Researchers/dp/0231193114 https://www.amazon.com/Better-Data-Visualizations-Scholars-R... https://guides.library.jhu.edu/datavisualization/scientific https://guides.library.jhu.edu/datavisualization/scientific https://github.com/rougier/scientific-visualization-book https://github.com/rougier/scientific-visualization-book
- shmeeed 1y ago>Soft skills are important for an engineer. Personally, I'm a bit nitpicky about capitalization and punctuation. I guess everybody's got their hobby-horse to ride.
- taspeotis 1y agoAnd the log scale makes this a contender for https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly/
- ginko 1y agoWhat's wrong with the log scale? IMO it's a good use of it since the size of the installer grew exponentially over time.
- 93po 1y agobecause the trend looks linear at a glance, and doesnt really provide a visual representation of the absolute difference in sizes. not to mention its quite rare to see log scale graphs, and many people wont even notice that it is, and leave with the wrong impression
- robin_reala 1y agoNote: log scale on the y axis. Current Adobe reader is 83x bigger than current Sumatra according to the chart.
- wanderingstan 1y agoYes. Log scale seems like a poor choice, given that the point is to show the relative size disparity.
- StrangeDoctor 1y agoFor a technical audience, it’s probably one of the better choices, it’s probably a poor one for mass consumption. A purely linear graph would absolutely crush their pdf installer and the first 15 years of adobe into a flat line
- fooofw 1y agoFor reference, here's a version with a linear y-axis: https://imgur.com/a/A2D1puk https://imgur.com/a/A2D1puk
- qualeed 1y agoFor the purposes of this article, this graph is much more effective at making the point than the log scale one. I think it would have been a better choice to use a graph like this. Thanks!
- ginko 1y agoBut you can barely tell the growth of sumatrapdf in the non-logarithmic chart. Same for Adobe Reader before 2000 or so.
- qualeed 1y agoFor the purposes of what this post is communicating, I don't think the exact sizes of adobe prior to 2000 or the exact size of sumatrapdf matters at all. The linear graph instantly communicates: - sumatrapdf has barely changed size in the same time that adobe's size has grown exponentially - adobe's crazy growth spike started ~6 years ago Maybe I'm just dumb, but I didn't realize the graph had a log y-axis at first. Then, once I realized that, I had to spend a bit of time parsing the graph to figure out what it was saying (I don't work with log graphs often at all). And once that was done, the only thing I came away with was "wow, adobe grew a hell of a lot when sumatra didnt", which is the same thing the linear graph told me instantly. Being able to see that sumatras size remains relatively flat while adobes size growth is practically vertical is all the granularity I care about at a glance. If I want to know exact sizes, I'll dive in deeper.
- ElectronBadger 1y agoMeanwhile... > apt show zathura | grep Size Installed-Size: 1,018 kB Download-Size: 224 kB
- arp242 1y agoThat's not a fair comparison as you need a bunch of dependencies to actually render stuff. On my system zathura-pdf-mupdf alone is 24M.
- alnwlsn 1y agoMy favorite PDF reader currently. It's limited, but faster than anything I've tried.
- ThomasGlanzmann 1y agoMupdf searches large pdfs much faster. However since I switched to wayland/sway I also use zathura because cut & paste works. Mupdf is an X application but I still use it to search large pdfs. But there is also this plugin but I did not try hard enough to get it running: https://github.com/pwmt/zathura-pdf-mupdf https://github.com/pwmt/zathura-pdf-mupdf. Under xorg worked cut & paste with mupdf.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 1y agoI use xpdf or evince. Never ran into a PDF that one of those couldn't handle. My needs are simple though.
- behnamoh 1y agoAdobe Reader is the first app I don't install on new machines. It's slow and sluggish, riddled with dark patterns and annoying pop ups, disrespects the user in every possible way, and hides basic editing functionality behind subscriptions. The trashiest piece of crap software. It's up there with MS Word (which gets progressively more bloated on Mac). Edit: Added "software" after crap for clarity.
- ethin 1y agoThe only thing I use Adobe Reader/Acrobat for is converting PDFs to text. Literally that's it, and that's only because, for some PDFs, it's much better than pdftotext is.
- perching_aix 1y ago> annoying pop ups Are pop-ups ever not annoying? :) Been on mind a lot lately actually, and I basically cannot come up with a situation where popups are actually an unavoidable and proper good choice. Not from a user perspective anyways (from a dev perspective, it's an easy way out and a "good" way to attention grab... and then not hold).
- diggan 1y ago> Are pop-ups ever not annoying? :) Pressing space to "preview" a file in Finder on macOS is pretty much "non-annoying popup", since you actually want it :)
- eviks 1y agoMaybe when you repeatedly try to do an impossible action and don't understand more subtle UI cues? The the popup would be correctly interfering to explain the frustration of the repeated fails?
- egypturnash 1y agoI have a plugin for Illustrator that has several options for helping to make sure your file gets saved regularly. I have it configured to just pop up a polite little warning after fifteen minutes of unsaved work. Sometimes it grabs focus from whatever I'm doing in Illustrator and this is indeed slightly annoying but it is also useful since I want it to interrupt whatever I'm doing and make me ask myself if I am at a good place to save, and if I'm not, then to save as soon as I am. Arguably this is still annoying but it is an annoyance I have explicitly asked for, knowing it'll be annoying.
- on_the_train 1y agoLog y axis is certainly a choice for comparing two linear quantities
- patcon 1y agodoesn't it looking straight (ish) on a log axis mean it's an exponential relationship, not linear?
- on_the_train 1y agoThe quantity (file size) is a linear one
- cedilla 1y agoWhat does it mean for a quantity to be linear?
- jaffa2 1y agoI would guess that it gets bigger in only one dimension
- 93po 1y agoafter some searching: it seems like you can have a linear quantity in physics or in dimensions when it involves length. for example, the more fence you have, the more length it has. it's a linear quantity because it scales 1:1 outside of that you can have a linear relationship, which is more like: income per hour worked. the more hours you work, the more income you have. and ignoring overtime pay, it's a 1:1 ratio again i dont believe the graph involves a linear relationship, because the the filesize doesnt increase the same every year. there's no connection between time progressing meaning filesize is inherently bigger. and file size isn't linear quantity because it doesnt involve a length.
- pessimizer 1y agoWhat does it mean for a quantity to be linear? edit: I'm late...
- scrumper 1y agoI was pretty shocked by this. I recently bought an old PC laptop to use in my workshop, to run some engine diagnostic software and machine control stuff that doesn't work on Mac. Of course one of the first things it needed was some PDF reading tool so I went for Reader, figuring Adobe's tool would be the least scummy. Installed it and suddenly I was getting McAfee popups? God knows what else it installed along with it. It's horrible. And the shop manual I'm trying to navigate while covered in oil keeps getting obscured by AI popups and ads. F'ing hell. Maybe I will try this Sumatra thing that the article mentions. I'm coming from Mac where I have Preview built in, and I really don't have the bandwidth to research a goddamned PDF reader. Very disappointed in Adobe.
- iJohnDoe 1y agoAll browsers open PDF files really well and sometimes better than Acrobat. Just need Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.
- scrumper 1y agoI'm generally looking at multi kilopage manuals where rapid search and navigation are important, and good zooming for diagrams. I didn't even try a browser as the machine is a bit constrained and I just thought it'd be too slow. But I'll try...
- alnwlsn 1y agoI run into this problem so often that I've been experimenting with rendering all the PDF pages to png images first, and a program that loads all of them on screen at once. The upside is that it is extremely fast, there is no loading time because all the images are loaded already. The downside is that it uses an obscene amount of memory. A 500 page manual could run you 8-10Gb of RAM. Also there is no more text highlighting or control-F. But the fact that even this "works" as well as it does indicates how much worse PDF readers are at this, especially when you get those scanned documents that still have the full images anyways, with lousy or no OCR. They take forever (multiple seconds per page) to load when your in a PDF in chrome and jump somewhere else in the document. Why not go back to image files for those ones to begin with?
- tech234a 1y agoAds and many online features can be removed before installation of Adobe Reader by customizing the installer using the Adobe Reader Customization Wizard for Windows [1], where there is an optional labeled "Disable Upsell" [2]. There might also be a version for macOS [3]. It might also just be possible to just directly set the appropriate "FeatureLockDown" options in the registry/preferences in your system [4]. [1]: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/index.html https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/in... [2]: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/online.html https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/on... [3]: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuide_Mac/index.html https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuid... [4]: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/PrefRef/Windows/index.html https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/PrefRef/W...
- 7bit 1y agoOr I install an alternative where I don't have to do this.
- stefantalpalaru 1y ago[dead]
- IshKebab 1y ago> for anyone sane would install it via scoop anyway The lack of awareness here is mind-blowing. Good post otherwise. Great graph.
- kelsey98765431 1y agoI am not super familiar with the windows ecosystem but my understanding is that scoop is a package manager similar to choco or nuget correct? is scoop seen as bloated? thanks
- microflash 1y agoscoop is fine since it keeps itself confined to user profile, unlike some other package managers.
- sixothree 1y agoDoesn't winget prefer to respect the package source's intention?
- aaviator42 1y agoThe lack of awareness is that the vast majority of users are not aware of and don't use scoop (or probably any package manager) on Windows, especially to install GUI apps, and that doesn't automatically make them "not sane".
- bigstrat2003 1y agoEven if someone uses a package manager, they probably use choco. I'd never even heard of scoop before reading this article.
- mcosta 1y agochoco needs admin rights, something corporate minions, as me, does not always have. scoop works always as user.
- iJohnDoe 1y agoAcrobat is broken on all of our company systems. Opens for a few seconds and then crashes. No amount of uninstalling and other tricks will get it to work. Trash software.
- shrubble 1y agoThe only difference I’ve noticed is the speed of display; but if you’re reading dense technical content that doesn’t matter much. Adobe Reader is faster if needing to view a lot of pages quickly.
- user_7832 1y agoTangential, is there any good smooth scrolling PDF viewer (for windows at least), that offers some level of customisation of view? (Like 2 pages side by side, and ideally dark mode and full top to bottom pages with hidden toolbars.) Adobe Viewer (? not sure of the name) was the only adobe product that had this ability afaik, and while I managed to get an old exe, it's been discontinued unfortunately. The closest appears to be Xodo PDF with pretty much all features, but it has a ton of popups.
- carlosjobim 1y agoGet a Mac and use Preview
- carlosjobim 1y agoThat's some very angry hacker down votes. What's wrong with using the right tool for the job? In another thread I suggested for another poster to sell their Mac and get a PC.
- Liftyee 1y ago> is there any good smooth scrolling PDF viewer (for windows at least) Seems like the asker is looking for Windows software in this case. Either way, "Get a Mac (...)" sounds a little unreasonable as a solution for "need a better PDF viewer". Just my $0.02: I'd presume that if a Mac was a better fit for this commenter then they would have switched over already. For some, the extra attention to detail and improved UX of an Apple device is not worth the extra $$$ compared to an equal spec'd PC. There are also other concerns you are probably aware of.
- user_7832 1y ago(I didn't downvote) I legitimately would get a mac, if only I could run my own OS on it easily and if it was reasonably repairable (I don't mind paying high prices for good products.) ...I suppose that's why I got a framework (13) lol
- tech234a 1y ago
- winkelwagen 1y agoAt this point i don’t trust large programs anymore. Someone recommended to use Lens to manage a k8 cluster. That application was a 600mb install file and if I’m not mistaken double that after installing on a Mac. Desktop software has become so crazy. Meanwhile the blender download is 300mb. It is not that I’m looking for over optimized software. But a 2gb k8 console doesn’t spark trust in the developers to begin with.
- mdallastella 1y agoYou can take a look at k9s: https://k9scli.io/ https://k9scli.io/
- hbn 1y agoIt's not much better on mobile. I just checked a few apps on my iPhone: Instagram, TikTok, Duolingo are all about 500mb each. And many of these apps are gigabytes when you use them for a bit and it caches things. I just cleared Snapchat's cache a few days ago, I barely use the app, and it's somehow taking up 5GB on my phone.
- znpy 1y agoI miss octant so much. It was really great, it was one of those 80/20 apps. Nowadays I, unironically, mostly use kubectl. I gave k9s a try but i can't make it stick to me, really...
- Self-Perfection 1y agoJust a week ago I reported 37 MB of wasted space in Debian package with Lens https://forums.k8slens.dev/t/debian-package-stores-lima-twice-wasting-10-of-deb-file/6353 https://forums.k8slens.dev/t/debian-package-stores-lima-twic... They promised to fix this.
- kevinventullo 1y agoWhat’s the best choice of free desktop PDF Viewer/Editor these days (any OS)? On Windows I’ve been using PDF-XChange for a decade or so now, but curious if better alternatives have cropped up.
- reboot81 1y agoI keep jumping between Preview and Skim. Preview for simple tasks and editing, Skim for advanced reading (think huge pdfs, where I want to see two parts of the file at the same time).
- MBCook 1y agoI switched to the Mac in ‘04 or ‘05. One thing that immediately impressed me was Preview, Nd how useful it was for PDFs. No more need for Adobe Reader. I’m not surprised in the least it’s still bloated and terrible. But I don’t think I would have guessed it was pushing the size of a full CD. What a joke.
- MaximilianEmel 1y agoI'd really like to see that graph in linear scale!
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y agoIt's funny that the graph uses logarithmic scaling which makes the increase look much less dramatic than it really is. On the other hand, a lot of stock charts use linear scaling which makes more dramatic than they really are. I think it should be the other way.
- HeavyStorm 1y agoLog scale makes you miss how bad it is.
- lykahb 1y agoWhich tools are capable of filling in a PDF form that has javascript?
- dangus 1y agoNow add the cost per gigabyte of storage and average internet speed to the graph.
- shmeeed 1y agoAnd app load times and page render times. Man, this could be the one chart that sums it all up.
- breadwinner 1y agoAfter acquiring Macromedia in 2005, Adobe integrated Flash into several of its products, including Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. This allowed embedded Flash (SWF) content in PDFs, which contributed to increased installer size and complexity. Flash support was eventually removed in the early 2020s after Adobe officially ended support for Flash Player. Adobe also embedded a JavaScript engine in Acrobat to support interactive PDF features like form validation and automation. Both Flash and JavaScript introduced significant security risks over the years. While Flash is no longer supported, Acrobat Reader still includes JavaScript functionality, which remains a potential attack surface. In contrast, lightweight PDF readers such as Sumatra do not support JavaScript or Flash, offering a smaller and more secure footprint.
- somat 1y agoI always found the embedded javascript weird in an ironic sort of way. There was postscript right, and postscript has a pretty great rendering engine. however the problem is that postscript is too powerful, as a Turing complete language it is hard to use the script results as a document. So adobe used the same rendering engine, tore out the Turing complete bits, added a bunch of structure and ended up with PDF. And the irony... they then proceeded to put the problematic Turing complete bits back in in the form of (spits in disgust) javascript. Hell, if they absolutely needed a scripting language embedded in their document(debatable) they should have put postscript back in.
- Yeul 1y agoEvery once in a while I have to update a Samsung app and see that the update is 110Mb. Not a big deal in a nation with 5G coverage but when I am on holiday somewhere in the boonies I realise how we take it all for granted.