Re: Wolfgang Breitling's papers at centrexcc.com

On Tue, 27 May 2003 12:20:25 -0700, Mikito Harakiri wrote:

> Wolfgang,
>
> Are your papers available in Acrobat 5 format only? AFAIK, free Acrobat 5
> reader has spyware, so many are reluctant to upgrade.

I heard the same rumour, I checked the program ( strace -o /tmp/trace.lst -f acroread) and I haven't found any "connect" calls which would have to be present if spyware was in the executable. I believe that rumours about "spyware" are only malicious rumors and nothing else. I also searched Slashdot and nothing popped out. I believe that Slashdot would report any spyware in Acrobat Reader. After all, that would be a headline news, don't you think? I don't think that any respectable company would engage in a spyware afair because if the word gets out, it would mean curtains for the company. The same thing happened to Netscape. After it was found out, it literally disappeared from the desktops. I don't know anybody still running netscape. It's either IE or Mozilla with a few cases of heavy Operitis. Netscape is gone. Adobe has too much to lose by playing with that stuff.

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Software is like sex, it is better when it is free.
Linus Torvalds