Adobe Digital Editions Now Comes With Free Bonus Bloatware
Adobe isn’t making much money off of its Epub-reading apps, but they’ve found a new way to cash in. A reader has tipped me to the news that Adobe is now bundling Norton Security Scan with the Adobe Digital Editions 4 installer file.
Unsuspecting users who only want to read an ebook are now prompted to install an unnecessary piece of bloatware. And to make matters worse, the checkbox to approve the installation comes pre-checked:
I’ve tested this myself, and I can report that the bloatware is bundled into the same version of Adobe DE 4.0.3 that was released in February. According to user reports, Adobe only added the spam install file some time in early July.
How disappointing.
This kind of nonsense is usually the hallmark of a slimy company desperate to make a buck any way it can. Sourceforge, for example, has lately been on the receiving end of a lot of grief lately for the way that has been seizing control of software projects hosted on the site and bundling said software into Sourceforge’s own spam-encrusted installers.
What Adobe is now doing with Adobe DE isn’t quite as bad, but it is in the same ballpark.
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