Substitutes for Adobe products?
Perhaps I'm neurotic but since coming across Foxit and reading about its pros and cons here I was struck by the whole bulk, nosiness, Active-X and LSO issues which seem to attach to all of the Adobe products. Obviously these are not always in the forefront of my mind but every now and then they get my goat while Foxit has been a totally pain-free experience.
Once again I've received a warning from my up-to-date FF that my Adobe add-ons/plug-ins are dangerously out of date so once again I try to update Flash, Flashplayer, Shockwave Flash etc. I follow the instructions to update them but it doesn't happen. I'm asked to turn off my virus protection (and I wonder how they could possibly have an honest reason for that requirement!) but even when I do so I still can't update - it just stops with no explanation. I strongly suspect it may be due to my BetterPrivacy and my cookie policy and my banning of Active-X and all of the other perfectly sensible things I do. So I restart my anti-virus and forget about it for a while.
Can I reasonably ditch the lot and install substitutes? Gnash may be a case in point, in place of Flashplayer (I think!), but it has been trashed by some advisors - albeit not too recently. Is it even a valid substitute? I watch quite a lot of YouTube and similar and friends are always sending me clips which I wouldn't want to miss.
Do I really need Flash, Flashplayer, Realplayer, Shockwave Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player and its Plug-in Dynamic.... thingy? Isn't here just one (perhaps two) uncomplicated bit(s) that will do the job and won't cheat and spy? The priority, though, is to replace the Adobe stuff unless I learn that any of the others are out to get me as well - I did say that some might think me neurotic!
I don't really even know what each Flash wotsit is used for. On my old "coffee percolator" (that's how my Spanish friends referred to my previous 98 machine!) I used to have similar sorts of issues and tried to make sense of different players and codecs and all sorts of stuff as possible replacements but it got me nowhere and I had to reinstall the Adobe stuff.
It goes against the grain that I believe their whole philosophy is underhand and so I'd just rather not support them. I can't be alone in this so would anyone care to advise me, please?
Last edited by Cameronian; 16th November 2011 at 19:18.