Read on as Appligent’s CEO Duff Johnson takes the Adobe Reader “Bloatware Bloviation” to task … “For those who still insist that applications can be measured by the time required for download or size of the installation, tell me how long does it take to deal with a PDF that breaks your preferred “lightweight” viewer? Somehow, that metric never makes it into the lazy claims of ‘bloatware’.”

Adobe has released emergency security updates for Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat to address the critical vulnerability which has been identified in Reader 9.3 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, Acrobat 9.3 for Windows and Macintosh, and Reader 8.2 and Acrobat 8.2 for Windows and Macintosh. Adobe has recommended its users to update their current version of software to 9.3.1 and for the users who cannot update to 9.3.1

Security firm Qualys report that Adobe Reader’s software should be a top priority for IT security managers.

NiXPS say yes in their latest blog post. But it’s not the concept of PDF Portfolio’s that troubles them per se, but rather the fact that in certain bleeding-edge PDFs, Adobe include a warning message that tells you to download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader if you want to view the PDF in question. No ifs, buts or maybes — if you want to view this PDF, then you’ll need to use Adobe’s software.

Adobe and Barnes announces further advancement for eBook distribution by joining hands to standardize the open EPUB and PDF eBooks and collaborating on a content protection standard based on Barnes & Noble and Adobe technology. Barnes and Noble will make all their content available to customers in PDF, which is one of the most compatible and secure file formats.

Early last week – Adobe rolled out a substantial path which covered just under 30 security issues. These vulnerabilities were said by ChannelWeb to leave susceptible to attacks by infected PDF-apps.

Yet another major security hole for Adobe Reader — as detailed in ComputerWeekly.com, they won’t say why, but they’re looking to release an update tomorrow.

Nart Villeneuve, a research fellow at the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto reports a malware attack on foreign correspondents in China. This attack was performed by way of an email with a PDF attachment — exploiting holes in Adobe Reader which dropped malware onto the host computer.

“Extra, extra, read all about it – get your free PDF creator, free pdf converter, and free PDF reader!”
Check out the freebie low-down on free pdf creators we’ve listed over at 4xPDF — we’ve covered off the top eight that don’t include hideous watermarks, ordered according to the stats on Download.com.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way — there was a time when you actually had to pay $50 for a copy of Adobe Reader as well as $2,495 for a copy of Acrobat Distiller – wow, back in the good ol’ …

I’ve just loaded up the latest release candidate of Windows 7 Ultimate (version 6, build 7100) — it was an upgrade on the previous (semi-dead-like-a-slug) 32-bit Vista installation. Packed it with the latest Adobe Reader (9.1 at the time, and 42mb download) for Windows Vista. Tried my best to load a PDF online and … no change. Right now, if you’re looking for a solution, try Foxit Reader…

According to a report on Reuters, Adobe “has promised to patch the newest zero-day vulnerability in its popular Adobe Reader software no later than next Tuesday, potentially adding another update to the month’s busiest patch day for the second time in three months.”

Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9.

The official patch for the recently announced security flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader is still roughly a week away, but in the mean time, a number of third parties have taken this opportunity to promote their own products, which aren’t affected by the security flaw.

Lurene Grenier of Sourcefire’s Vulnerability Research Team has published an update for Adobe Reader 9 to provide defense against the recently reported Adobe Reader bug.

Installing software on an unsupported operating system isn’t usually a good idea. In fact, it is quite often fraught with risk, as a lot of people found in 2006 when they tried to install software on Windows Vista that was originally been built for Windows XP and hadn’t been updated yet. Luckily — so far — it seems like it is going to be a far smoother transition from Windows Vista to Windows 7.