Recently I wrote a blog entry about bloated software, and how much better Foxit PDF reader was than Adobe Reader. But I was using Adobe Reader 8. Little did I know how much superior version 9 would be.

For starters, version 8 was a 22 MB download. Version 9 is a mere 33 MB — a whole major version up, and not even twice as big. The default download includes a 19 MB eBay Desktop program, for all your “faster searching, smarter bidding” needs. So tempting … but I opted out.

On my cable connection, it took about 5 minutes to download, nicely allowing me enough time to brew a decent cup of coffee while I waited.

But it wasn’t just a simple, ordinary download. First Adobe told me to download a Firefox plugin. I assumed the plugin would help me read PDFs in my browser. But oh no, this was a special plugin, an Adobe Reader Download Manager (TM) — a plugin specially designed to help Firefox download Adobe’s powerful PDF viewer.

After the plugin was installed and Firefox restarted, the download began. I couldn’t wait to try Adobe’s MUCH FASTER and SMARTER product.

Download done, I double-clicked the installer. It spent a long time unpacking and validating the installer, which gave me warm fuzzies about Adobe’s good grasp of stability, security, and enterprisey robustness.

After the unpacking, the install process itself took 10 minutes. I could only thank Adobe’s engineers, presuming they were filling up my hard drive with yummy icons, tasty DLLs, and amazing 3D JavaScript add-ons. No matter — the 210 MB it required was there to be used.

I had just slurped down the dregs of my coffee when the installer finished. I was so thankful when it told me I needed to restart my computer, welcoming the extra time to drink coffee, as well as the pure delight I knew I’d get from starting all my applications again.

I could finally try out this new software. I was impressed. It started in a minuscule 13 seconds, plus the time it took me to skim their poetic and beneficent license agreement.

Ah, the joy of using a new product. Unlike Microsoft products, Adobe’s new, bigger Reader behaves exactly the same as the old one. In fact, it’s so compatible I can’t even tell the difference! Boy, I know good release management when I see it …

Thank you, Adobe, for version 9 of your free PDF Reader. You even thought to put a nice link to Acrobat.com on my Start Menu!

4 July 2008 by Ben 199 comments

Add a comment