Recently I’ve been helping out friends and relations reformat a few computers. They are older, but are speedy enough for their basic needs. One of the sick system hogs (I’ve found) is the Adobe Update Manager.

Most browsers come with update managers, so I feel the Update Manager is bloated and not necessary. It likes to place its services in the startup causing unneeded processing power.

When it came to reformatting my own laptop, there was no way I was going to install Acrobat Reader from Adobe using their typical download page. Which incidentally, if your not careful will also install a toolbar. You need to uncheck that option.

Adobe does have a page where you can download directly without the ridiculous manager. Hat tip to Walker News, who provided me with the adobe direct download link. (http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/).

UPDATE: This no longer works. I now run older versions from old version.com