Adobe is now processing all your PDFs in the cloud, by default. The setting to “Enable generative AI features in Acrobat” was on, and I didn’t know it until I opened a document and Adobe asked me if I wanted a document summary. It’s annoying to have to click “No,” so I opened settings to disable the prompt.
THE PROBLEM
I sign Non-Disclosure Agreements for many of my clients. Adobe is a potential leak of protected information. I don’t know what Adobe does with this information. I don’t know what they store, or for how long. I don’t know what country (or countries) the data is stored in. I don’t know what LLMs are trained with this data. And I don’t need to know. What I need to know is that they won’t use default opt-in as a legal excuse to wiretap my information.
I recommend that you check your Adobe settings on all devices, for all Adobe accounts.
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Su_G
in reply to Bob Young • • •Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов
in reply to Su_G • • •> What do they gain?
One possibility is a feeling they have jumped on the right bandwagon, illusory though it may be.
@Su_G @fifonetworks
OS-SCI
in reply to Bob Young • • •caos likes this.
Oliver Schafeld
in reply to OS-SCI • • •I don't need advanced PDF editing options so I'm quite happy with using Skim instead of Acrobat Reader.
skim-app.sourceforge.io
I switched from Adobe Creative Suite to Affinity (one-time purchase instead of monthly subscription). Occasional Photoshop users could even try this free web app: photopea.com
Photopea | Online Photo Editor
www.photopea.comcaos likes this.
Ian Brown 👨🏻💻 reshared this.
CHB
in reply to Bob Young • • •BobDevney
in reply to Bob Young • • •Yikes.
Although all three Generative AI boxes were unchecked (set to off) when I looked in my settings, so apparently not on by default in the case of my account. Whew. But thanks, will look again every so often.
MvRiederberg
in reply to Bob Young • • •Koen 🇺🇦
in reply to Bob Young • • •I recommend you don't use adobe, easy and safe - there are plenty open source pdf readers
opensourcealternative.to/proje…
sumatrapdfreader.org/download-…
alternativeto.net/software/ado…
Sumrat PDF Reader | Open Source Alternative to Adobe Acrobat
www.opensourcealternative.toRoman Oswald
in reply to Bob Young • • •Fleur Bergman likes this.
Electron Wizard
in reply to Roman Oswald • • •- YouTube
m.youtube.comGurre Vildskägg reshared this.
Stuck Here
in reply to Electron Wizard • • •I forgot about Sumatra. It was my go to in my Windows days. There's even a portable app version. Throw it on a USB drive or a dropbox account and take it wherever.
Electron Wizard
in reply to Stuck Here • • •Wish the sun to stand still 🌞
in reply to Bob Young • • •But there is something you now know, that you didn't before...
Adobe is yet another data-felching rat bastard corp.
This is why, as you may recall, I take issue with the lack of clear local-remote boundaries in how IT products are presented. A FOSS app store like F-Droid will make the distinction clear, but that appears to be the exception.
Wish the sun to stand still 🌞
in reply to Wish the sun to stand still 🌞 • • •IIRC, #Adobe was considered the no. 3 adtech platform circa late-2010s, and their magic vehicle for tracking ad exposure was #Acrobat.
AI is a new justification to turbo-charge the process of grabbing users' private information.
Martin Vermeer FCD
in reply to Wish the sun to stand still 🌞 • • •Caleb Maclennan
in reply to Martin Vermeer FCD • • •CHB
in reply to Bob Young • • •I checked and it was standard set as ”On” on my computer. I have highlighted this to my employer and can just wait to see if our IT-staff will act on this.
3dcandy
in reply to Bob Young • • •Albert Cardona
in reply to Bob Young • • •caos likes this.
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El Duvelle
in reply to Albert Cardona • • •...what's a good Adobe alternative for reading and signing PDFs? 🥹
Edit: on windows
Dan Goodman
in reply to El Duvelle • • •Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •Dan Goodman
in reply to Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) • • •El Duvelle
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •Rich Stein (he/him)
in reply to El Duvelle • • •pdf24.org/en/
Solutions for all PDF problems - 100% free - PDF24
www.pdf24.orgIris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)
in reply to El Duvelle • • •Albert Cardona
in reply to El Duvelle • • •xournal, okular, and LibreOffice writer all can sign documents digitally. Okular perhaps the easiest for PDF files, followed by Xournal.
El Duvelle reshared this.
El Duvelle
in reply to Albert Cardona • • •Thanks! I had tried okular before but had to go back to adobe for some reason that I don't remember. So I'll give it another go 😀
Eric Ireland
in reply to El Duvelle • • •neurologo@mastodon.cloud moved
in reply to El Duvelle • • •@elduvelle @albertcardona it depends on what you use: Linux, Mac, Windows…
But all of them have alternatives.
Teixi
in reply to El Duvelle • • •@elduvelle @albertcardona
pdf in win you could try free version of 7 pdf, convert, read & possibly also signing
7-pdf.com/products/pdf-printer
bit more transparent, but still ms only allows transcription for online o365 browser based word subscriptions
techcommunity.microsoft.com/bl…
but there are some pretty good oss voice transcribe alternatives:
• github.com/oTranscribe/oTransc…
• cmusphinx.github.io
• github.com/kaldi-asr/kaldi
• alphacephei.com/vosk/
HTH
Transcribe comes to Word for Windows
Linda_C (TECHCOMMUNITY.MICROSOFT.COM)Sirana
in reply to El Duvelle • • •I use PDF X-Change on my computer and like it. However, I never bothered exploring all the things Adobe's PDF program can do when I was still using it, so I don't know if it has all the features over people consider vital for their work.
For mobile devices I use Xodo, but same disclaimer applies here.
@albertcardona @fifonetworks
Future Sprog
in reply to Bob Young • • •Adobe Reader was the source of approximately 95% of all notifications on my desktop.
How have you still got it installed? I’d go mad.
@fifonetworks
Nick Stevens Graphics
in reply to Bob Young • • •MrGrumpyMonkey
in reply to Nick Stevens Graphics • • •Nazani
in reply to Bob Young • • •CelloMom On Cars
in reply to Nazani • • •@Nazani
Apple has a utility called Preview. Works on PDF and some image files like JPG.
J$ reshared this.
Expertenkommision Cyberunfall
in reply to Bob Young • • •I’m not a lawyer, but I recommend to read the terms and description of service and changeligs for every bit of software snd service you might(!) process NDA-affected documents. This includes every update.
You will then switch to #FOSS very quickly.
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️
in reply to Bob Young • • •Alternative
tools.pdf24.org/en/creator
PDF24 Creator - Download - 100% Free
PDF24 ToolsPteryx the Puzzle Secretary
in reply to Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️ • • •...This doesn't seem to have specific download links for specific OSes, despite claiming to support multiple OSes. Does it simply assume that whatever OS you're browsing with is the OS that you want to run the programs on?
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️
in reply to Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary • • •@pteryx
I went back to the main PDF 24 page ( tools.pdf24.org/en/ ) for the online version which of course does nor depend on your OS, and there it has the option to download the version to run on your machine. That version appears to be Windows only.
"Alternative: PDF24 Creator
Software for Windows with similar features"
Free PDF solutions for all PDF problems
PDF24 ToolsWolf Munroe ☎
in reply to Bob Young • • •Adobe is a trash company. I'm surprised there's an option to disable the AI feature.
Years ago I wanted Acrobat Reader to stop putting a shortcut on my desktop every time it updated (roughly monthly). AdobeCare told me to install another Adobe software (an administrative policy editor, basically) to make the change as I couldn't do it in Acrobat Reader itself. I couldn't make heads or tails of that program.
I'm on Linux now though, so I should be safe. No Adobe here.
Wolf Munroe ☎
Unknown parent • • •@kaasbaas
Oh, I didn't move to Linux to escape Adobe, it's just a side benefit.
I just jumped off Windows 10 early (mid-2023) when they announced End-of-Life. I had kind of wanted to switch when I bought this PC in 2019 but I wasn't ready to commit at that point. In 2019 I got this PC and it came with Windows 10. I had used WindowsXP before that, long past its End-of-Life. Now I don't remember why it took me so long to commit to the switch to Linux.
Dimitris
in reply to Bob Young • • •Dr Neenah Estrella-Luna
in reply to Dimitris • • •caravantravellers 🌈
in reply to Bob Young • • •Stuck Here
in reply to caravantravellers 🌈 • • •People who need to load software often don't pay attention. I needed to load some software on my only windows PC and it wanted to side load Adobe PDF reader. If I hadn't paused between installation screens and just clicked continue, I'd have had that program to have to uninstall later.
MrGrumpyMonkey
Unknown parent • • •@_L1vY_ Welcome to team Tux. 🐧 Glad to have another M$ refugee join the dark side. Here's your cookie. 🍪
As a [very] long time M$ Windows user and IT Consultant, I managed to transition with the help of a lot of folks. Have any questions, I might be able to help. I'm just an average user, but that has allowed me to point newcomers in the right direction. The journey might be rough, but It'll be worth it in the long run.
MrGrumpyMonkey
Unknown parent • • •MrGrumpyMonkey
Unknown parent • • •Dave Everitt
in reply to Bob Young • • •MostlyTato
in reply to Dave Everitt • • •Affinity is excellent imo, shame it's not on Linux.
arclight
in reply to Bob Young • • •Craig Mcgee
in reply to Bob Young • • •David Palk#RejoinEU 💖🇪🇺🕊🌈
in reply to Bob Young • • •Danielle Crawford
in reply to Bob Young • • •Tom Binroth
in reply to Bob Young • • •Jes Moved to @Jes@labyrinth.zone
in reply to Bob Young • • •ratfactor
in reply to Bob Young • • •Some alternatives people may not have considered:
* Firefox has PDF editing features, and they're quite good:
firefox.com/en-US/features/pdf…
* FOSS tools like Inkscape and Scribus cover more advanced needs:
wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/Multipa…
scribus.net/
* Without installing anything, the PDF tools on this website run entirely in the browser (no uploads to "the cloud"). You can do useful things like split and merge PDFs or convert pages to and from JPG:
pdfshelter.com/
PDF Shelter | Innovative PDF solutions online
PDF ShelterRajTool
in reply to Bob Young • •RajTool
in reply to Bob Young • •RajTool: Free Online PDF Compressor
RajTool likes this.