At times I have to wonder if the major software developers have some kind of secret agreement with the hard disk manufacturers that involves using up as much disk space as possible on customers’ computers.
This is nothing new, but since I recently re-installed the operating system and all the application programs on my PC, it brought the subject forward to a prominent position in my never-ending (and ever-growing) list of computer gripes.
It all started when I visited the Adobe web site to download the latest version of the Adobe Reader application. Adobe Reader has been around for quite a while and is used to display the contents of PDF files. If you have spent any significant time surfing around the net and downloading things, you have probably encountered PDF files.
Adobe Reader has been free for a long time, and although it is good of Adobe to make it freely available to anyone who wants it, that generosity also goes a long way towards promoting the use of their PDF file format. After all, what good is it if people can’t read the contents of PDF files?
Luckily Adobe had a link to the Adobe Reader download right on their web site home page, so I didn’t have to search around trying to find the download page. That, apparently, was the end of my lucky streak.
When I arrived at the download page I was rather surprised to see that the Adobe Reader download was 26.8 megabytes. I then noticed two little check boxes that were already checked (for my convenience no doubt!) that included two other applications as part of the Adobe Reader download.
These two additional applications were called ‘Adobe Yahoo! Toolbar’ and ‘Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition,’ and that was, no doubt, the reason the size of the download was listed as 26.8 megabytes. I’d just uncheck those two boxes and simply download just the reader, since that was all I really wanted.
Imagine my surprise when I unchecked the two boxes only to reveal that the download size had dropped a massive 7 megabytes to 19.8 megabytes!
Why in the world would Adobe require 19.8 megabytes to code a PDF reader? I fondly recall the days when the Adobe Reader download was around 5 megabytes. Don’t quote me on that, but it was certainly less than 10 megabytes!
I went ahead and downloaded the installation file and began to install it when I realized that it may not be necessary. Had the file been a reasonable size, I would have just finished up the install and moved merrily onto the next application on my list.
The more I thought about the ridiculously bloated size of this installation file, the more determined I was to not install it on my PC. It’s not a disk space issue. I have well over 200 gigabytes of space on this machine.
For me it becomes a matter of what else is bundled in with the simple functionality of a PDF reader, which is all I really want. I’m not suggesting that Adobe has included any kind of spyware or adware or anything else obnoxious or harmful, but it does leave me wondering what is taking up all that space.
Having used Microsoft Windows for about as long as it has been available, I know from years of experience that the more software you install on a PC, the greater the likelihood of running into problems like sluggish performance and application errors. It’s a simple fact of life with Windows.
This is what gave me pause during the initial phase of the installation process for Adobe Reader. I don’t need a dozen other functions or applications in addition to Adobe Reader, all I want is the reader dammit! And since coding the reader should require no more than a megabyte or two, I knew this package was bloated with a bunch of crap I did not want or need.
I aborted the installation and went in search of an alternative.
In recent years, I have happily noticed a growing supply of free software available on the net that can be used in place of these bloated corporate products that we have all become dependent upon.
I went to Google and performed a search for ‘adobe reader alternative’ and was rewarded with exactly the results I had hoped for.
Among the search results was a web site that hosted a free application called Foxit Reader. Billed as the ‘lightened alternative to Adobe Reader,’ I knew I had come to the right place.
I downloaded the program and installed it and it works like a charm. It comes up a lot faster than Adobe Reader and it does just what I want it to do. It decodes and displays the contents of PDF files. It doesn’t tell me about the weather in Kalamazoo, ask me if I want to register it or offer to fetch my slippers. Imagine that!
And the best part? The download was about 1 megabyte in size! Holy mackerel! Have you seen this Adobe? You can actually code a very nice PDF reader with around a megabyte of space!
The moral of the story is to seek alternatives. You may be surprised to discover how many choices you have for various applications that you require.
Next time you are about to install some bloated mainstream application, stop and check out the free alternatives that may be available. There are a tremendous number of free software sites on the net to explore.
If you are in a hurry (like I often seem to be) the good old ‘name-of-software-here alternative’ search on Google usually does the trick for me.
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