If it seems like you’re prompted to update Adobe Reader more often than you visit the grocery store, there’s a reason: It’s an inherently insecure program that requires more patches than a NASCAR driver’s racing uniform in order to keep hackers from breaking into your system.
Yep, hackers love Adobe Reader – which means you shouldn’t.
The good news is you don’t really need Adobe Reader on your computer at all, even if you tend to read lots of PDF files. If you use Google Chrome or Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, those browsers now display PDF files by default without having to load Adobe Reader at all.
If you prefer using I.E. you can replace Adobe Reader with Sumatra PDF, a great tool for viewing PDF files that works great and loads much faster than Adobe!
Unfortunately, in today’s world we have to be ever vigilant in keeping our computers safe from hackers and scammers, and part of that vigilance means removing insecure programs from our systems whenever possible.
Adobe Reader might be the 800 pound gorilla in the world of PDF readers, but the fact is you don’t need it and I recommend ditching it ASAP with the “Uninstall a Program” utility in the Control Panel (or better yet, use the awesome and free GeekUninstaller).