Why I hate Adobe

Maybe it's Adobe's Mac background. Maybe it's because they equip all their programmers and testers with state of the art, lightning fast gear so that they never notice speed problems. Maybe it's that they haven't got a clue. Either way, I just hate all the Adobe software I come across. From Acrobat Reader which takes forever to load up all the modules that you're unlikely ever to use, before you can actually read the 2 paragraph PDF press release you've been sent, to Premiere Elements, the most appallingly incapable and inefficient video editor I've EVER come across, it's just hate, hate, all the way. Just say no.

Comments

Jason Newton said…
Me too!

All I wanted to do was buy Adobe Acrobat 8 pro and download it from the store.

What a failure. This horrible software, Adobe Download Manager was a joke - never downloaded anything.

2 hours with customer service. No help.

Then I get the run around to cancel my order. And just to top things off, I have to print and fax back a document to Adobe promising to "destroy" the software I never got.

Once I do that, I get the money back.

Good news - if Adobe's store stays this bad, no one will ever be able to download software again.

What a horrible experience.

Jason
Unknown said…
YES!! Adobe sucks. I just commented because I came across this searching google for "I hate adobe". That's how i feel today (and most of the other days too).
Bill Swensen said…
I used to live in Seattle and I'd see these white Adobe driving around and I just wanted to ram them off the side of a cliff. I can't tell you how many times I found myself screaming at PhotoShop, "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME DO THIS? I JUST CLICKED ON IT MAKE IT HAPPEN!" But it never does... You have to go through ten retarded steps to do the simplest thing... Retarded!
phd008 said…
I hate Adobe as well. I purchased Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional from an online store. How arrogant Adobe turned out after my concerns. I find out you can only install it on two computers and then you cannot run it simulataneously on both computers. How asinine is that? I called them and it seems Adobe doesn't give a crap about customer service. I sent a compliant to the NC Attorney General and Adobe has the arrogance to say they are concerned and take my complaints seriously but they wouldn't do a thing for me. Apparently they are not as concerned as they claim.

Customer service is a joke, if you can get one of those foreigners on the phone who can't speak good English.

I addressed the reply from Adobe to the Attorney General once again. Adobe says they have addressed the issues and are closing my case. They refused to answer any further concerns. I was quoted two different prices on a MULA and one was the same as the retail price of the software. Another rep told me to purchase an additional software application of Adobe Pro v8.0.

I'm taking it a step further with legal counsel. All I asked was to allow me to install it on one more
computer.
shooflypie said…
adobe software is so so slow
Unknown said…
Adobe has the worst support in the world. They frankly just ignore serious bugs in their software and never reply to any serious questions on their forums. I have lost so much time and money because of file saving bugs in their flash software, and it just seems to be getting worse.
lori_m said…
I just spent 3 hours on the phone with Adobe customer service. I purchased the wrong upgrade for my web dev. software and had to return it and purchase the correct product. It takes 4 weeks to get a refund!!! What a joke. When I asked to have the name and address of the VP to customer service they refused! Please - someone give me an alternative to Dreamweaver! I hate Adobe!
Unknown said…
Yep I am really hating ADOBE too. I tried to order an upgrade to CS3 via the phone it took 45 minutes.

They sent me a Windows version when I ordered a MAC. To return the damn thing it took another hour on the phone with 'customer service'.
I had to fax all these codes...yes I said FAX to get the Windows version cancelled. Then they had the nerve to tell me it will take 30 to 45 days to credit my CCard $650. Now all I want is an even exchange for the Mac version mind you.

2.5 hours to get this CS3 upgrade. I am not all that happy with the software but I am running Leopard so the upgrade is mandatory. If you don't have to upgrade to CS3 don't do it. The software needs patches daily. It has been out for well over a year.

If my graphics business did not demand this software I would not touch the stuff. Adobe has bought many Mac based graphics programs so I am stuck.

I have been creating digital graphics for 15 years. What have they done to this company?
Unknown said…
Yep I am really hating ADOBE too. I tried to order an upgrade to CS3 via the phone it took 45 minutes.

They sent me a Windows version when I ordered a MAC. To return the damn thing it took another hour on the phone with 'customer service'.
I had to fax all these codes...yes I said FAX to get the Windows version cancelled. Then they had the nerve to tell me it will take 30 to 45 days to credit my CCard $650. Now all I want is an even exchange for the Mac version mind you.

2.5 hours to get this CS3 upgrade. I am not all that happy with the software but I am running Leopard so the upgrade is mandatory. If you don't have to upgrade to CS3 don't do it. The software needs patches daily. It has been out for well over a year.

If my graphics business did not demand this software I would not touch the stuff. Adobe has bought many Mac based graphics programs so I am stuck.

I have been creating digital graphics for 15 years. What have they done to this company?
Anonymous said…
Adobe Flash.

The final blow to my patience with Adobe.

I wish Flash never existed, what a waste of programming and quality!
SLOnative said…
I bought Adobe Suite CS2 about two years ago. I wanted to learn how to be more professional with PhotoShop, so I bought Deke McClelland's great Adobe Photoshop CS3 "one-on-one".

So I went to my local Mac Superstore and bought an upgraded version of Photoshop CS3. Then I noticed it kept getting 30-day expiration notices unless I put in my old serial number. It never took.

Today I went to the Adobe site and was told via a Chat session with a technician named Michael, that I can't upgrade just one part of CS2 Suite, I have to upgrade to the ENTIRE CS2 Suite!

I bought my first Photoshop program (Version 2) in October 1992.

Is this any way to treat a long time customer?
Mike Milo said…
Ok but the best one? try and uninstall the stupid Suite. Uh oh, even though you uninstalled it, it still retains prefs from all the dlls and additional files the programs spray all over your computer's hard drive.

Then download the spiffy WinCS3Clean utility to fully erase the evil Adobe apps from your computer...

Uh oh... you can't just uninstall it. You need an update from Microsoft to do it!

Want to get some details about that?

Wait for it...

Open the 'PDF' file to read how to do it! You know... use the Acrobat program you just UNINSTALLED to read the directions to the next step!
Hot damn!
that's got to be up there with the stupidest thing I've ever seen... right behind the guy who's car was too cold one winter so he put some gas in the microwave to warm it up.

That's how stupid you are Adobe.
VJBasil said…
Because I typed in google I hate Adobe, I came on this site.

I used to love Adobe in the old days of illustrator 3,0.
Working with these programs now for nearly 20 years I think everything is getting worse with every new version.
I upgraded to CS 4 premium because of the demand of my clients.
here are my comments:

2DVDs to install, takes approx 50 minutes
SLOWWWW software
BUGGGIE software
ARROGANT company
Bad user interface.
( althought I find this CS4 Ui a little better again than the CS2 I came from )
MANUALS are now only available online!!!
So if you want to look something up in the manual ( since CS we do not get hardcopy manuals anymore)
you have to go to a website. there was no more space on the DVD's anymore tot put the pdf's there, because of the lazy programmers who make programs bigger and bulkier al the time.
So you can download the pdf-manuals, no prob.. but it is impossible to connect the help system to these downloaded pdf's.
So everytime you are forced to go to this ( commercial filled and ) unclear website help.

BUT okay, the worst thing about Adobe manuals is the total neglect of the fact that users of this software are 99% graphic and media pro's, who are all visually oriented people. The manuals consist ( since version 8 as far as I remember ) for 99% of TEXT.

Tis has been the last upgrade of any ADOBE program, I will get on with this shit for a year ort 3 and hopefully by then we will see really professional opensource DTP solutions.
For now we see things like the gimp. inkscape, openoffice, scribus, all very promising.
SLOnative said…
I'm still waiting 30 days now for a refund for buying an upgrade of PhotoShop 3 to match the $50 book I bought by Deke McClelland—one-on-one Adobe Photoshop CS3.

After 30 days they killed my PS CS3, saying that I wasn't allowed to upgrade one program, but had to buy the full CS3 SUITE.

The best manual ever written was by Apple back when the Mac came out in about 1984. You could tell it was written by professional advertising copywriters, not tech nerds.

Sometimes I think writers like Deke McClelland pay software companies like Adobe to not publish manuals.
theHatist said…
why I hate Adobe:

1) do you think, now that it is 2009, that Photoshop can become a non-destructive paintbox? Other graphics packeges have allowed me to adjust a blur after I have put it on- even if I have adjusted something else! Just think- tweak a color correcting a day later- why, it would be like we were using technology from 1998!

2) After Effects, aka, Fisher-Price's My First Compositor. With the CS4 update, I have finally been given the ability to actually pull the points in the grapoh editor! Woo-hoo. Too bad I could do this in 1994 in any 3D software program. Still no real color corrector. Do you think I could reference the same matte more than one clip at time? I know it is more fun to copy the same @#$%^ matte 20 times for each of the 20 layers it's being used in.

Oh, and when I apply a 2nd effect after the 1st effect, I WOULD LIKE IT TO ALWAYS EFFECT THE FIRST EFFECT. Some times I don't want my comp to be 30 subcomps deep just because I want to make a matte channel and add a couple of effects to it.

What is the bit depth? Millions of colors? Trillions of colors? What does that even mean? If you are too stupid to learn what 8 bit, 16 bit, and floating point are, maybe you should find another occupation.

3) didn't Flash used to work? Oh, Adobe bought it. No wonder it won't install. Or work.


Adobe is at the forefront of dumbing down software so that your grandmother can use it.

You know what? My grandmother ISN"T AN ARTIST. If Adobe was in the camera biz, they would throw out the SLRs and make everyone use a point and shoot. With autofocus, cuz focusing is hard.
jay d said…
me too, i hate Adobe with that seething dark hatred reserved for the lowest garbage software morons on earth. i hate them. i hate them all. i hate them. i hate all of them. i hate them. i hate the way Adobe is, how it was, how it is going to be. i will always always hate Adobe for ever and ever and ever. i will never stop hating Adobe ever. i promise you that much. however when i cannot do my security updates on Microsoft Windows XP, my seething hatred extends also to them people at Microsoft, and i would describe my hatred of Microsoft in the same way. But also, when i try to update my Apple software on my Windows XP, and cannot update that either, why then my hatred seethes again, and I hate all those people too. (i have had this computer for 4 years but the computer is fine, its all this garbage software out there, and that software comes from people i hate, the people who are torturing me and getting paid for it. then the hackers, and the virus writers, i hate all them too. because they make everything worse and worse. every day on the planet for them is way too long. them and the people they are plaguing, the people i hate who made Adobe, Microsoft and Apple. i hate em all. i dont know what else to do except that, its my part i suppose.) they dont listen either. i mean, i had to stand on my hind legs and beg for a clock that would update the time when i asked it to, but the question i had was this, why is microsoft windows Xp expecting me, a mere mortal, to click something to update a blanky blank "clock"? think about it. but after weeks of writing crank letters (signed of course) i begged and begged and begged, please god make a clock that updates itself correctly even when i click on it (have to!)-- you know, before that, the clock would not update itself, it would not even update when i clicked on it and asked it to directly, i begged Microsoft please god make a clock that updates correctly and dependably, and dont make me have to work over and over and over and never get the clock to update, way into the night, and never get it to update, finally they fixed it. now it updates fine. but .. why do i have to click to update the clock still!! after all these years.. remarkable..! (in the past a clock could update by radio, you would hear the ticking on the telephone and a little bonging sound when the minute changed, and that was all "automatic"! a new concept i suppose...!! i sure could use a finders fee for discovering that concept hey.
Kostas said…
I wanted to flash a spin as a developing tool... oh my god the amount of obstacles adobe puts in the way for me using their own product! Why do I need to supply huge amounts of personal data just to try a piece of software? Maybe I won't even like it? If nothing else existed maybe it would be viable, but every other tool vendor lets you try their tool with little or no fuss. Frankly trying a pirated version is much much easier...
SLOnative said…
Has anyone here ever actually received a reply from anyone at Adobe?

Last year (2007) I bought a PhotoShop book that used PhotoShop CS3 as examples. I owned Creative Suite 2 and needed to upgrade. So I bought an upgrade of PhotoShop CS3. It only worked for 30 days.

Adobe said I had to upgrade the entire Creative Suite to 3. So I returned their form with my receipt for $200+ to Washington State. I'm not going to upgrade to CS 3/4 without my refund!

Here it is mid-May 2009 and I still haven't received as much as an email.

Why couldn't I send that receipt to San Jose? Is Washington that much cheaper to push papers than California?
LeAnn K. Fenton said…
I quit the adobe nightmare. I don't care what adobe deos I'm not feeding the machine. So far I haven't run into anything I can't do on some other program. It may take longer but I can still do it. I don't have a design firm and I don't have to worry about software compadibility so why bother. And the software is WAY cheaper. I still wonder what they did with the 1000s I spent on adobe but they sure didn't put it in the software or the customer service.
Unknown said…
I have been on hold for two hours to talk to tech support because i cannot open a raw image.

what a joke.
they deserve to go out of business.
Mike Milo said…
Here's something kinda cool where you can gripe about Adobe and post your issues. From what I've seen Adobe actually responded to some of the issues. Perhaps their hearing they're not the bright shining star they think they are?

http://www.dearadobe.com/responses.php#
Anonymous said…
YES!!! Adobe sucks! I just commented because I came across this when searching google for "I hate adobe". That's how I feel. I moaned when they bought Macromedia. And their Linux Membership Status should be revoked!!!
They don't even support Linux!
even steven said…
adobe does indeed suck--unfortunately they are the oly game in town. the little bean counters have made a deliberate decision to screw their customers. at a corporate level they have mandated to their minions that the saps that bought their products are to be dismissed. they have a corporate policy to dismiss customers concerns about their inferior products.adobe customer service is pitiful aand will only get worse, they have no reason to support their customers. adobe does indeed suck and their management is despicable.
Unknown said…
Adobe is pathetic. When you purchase a new Business computer and it is high powered enough to handle most applications, with Adobe CS4 master collection it took litterally more than an hour to install only parts of the package (4 DVDS) talk about bloatware!! What have they done to the programs that make it such a monstrosity? Updates every week it seems to flash player which causes huge issues with our users who can't seem to view content because of their locked down computers. People complain about Microsoft...but they are miles ahead of Adobe. At least you can run most Microsoft software on underpowered machines (even lower than their recommendation). I would say that for Adobe products to run, you need a supercomputer. High end games run faster on the workstations I support!!
margaret f said…
I'm working with Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0 and it keeps freezing up!
I've now been on the phone with Adobe for 42 minutes. From tech suppport to sales (so I can buy tech suppport)...Sales says, oh but you're entitled to free support...back to tech support....i'm sorry ma'm you must pay...grrrgghghhgghhg
Unknown said…
I hate adobe flash cs3 so much. All the stupid scripting to get a stupid button to work. And then you have errors. Down with adobe flash.
tina said…
I hate Adobe now I cannot play my facebook. it says I needed to update my flash, I did and then it just never worked again. I have to read all the info on how to griffing download it and it is not working no matter what I do... I hate this
Unknown said…
Ha ha... I just found this after Googling 'deep hatred of adobe'.

I am sitting here waiting for the flash plugin to 'install' (ubuntu). The nasty thing is the plugin is not the plugin. The plugin is a 'download and install'. Which does not play well with a proxy / firewall. It violates the fundamental premise that once the plugin is downloaded then no internet connection is needed to install.

No doubt this is a horrible workaround for some short-coming they don't have time to rectify... or it some terrible marketing plan to monitor who is downloading what.

I'm glad Apple has it in for them.
Unknown said…
Yes after rebooting my Win7 system I got the Adobe updater. this must happen every week at least.
Why, more than any other program, does Adobe update so much? One could say it's a good thing because it is patching security leaks. Well if a program has that many security leaks it means poorly written code. It means it's a buggy pieces of $#!T!
Apple is correct. Cut them loose. Goodbye PDF, goodbye Flash!
I just got off the phone with the help desk.
They bloody scammed me after delivering a DUTCH version of flash to me and told me there was nothing they could do for me..
THEN they took every piece of software I bought previously from them back. flash 5,mc and cs3..

Read the whole story at:
http://flashcandy.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-hate-adobe.html
This used to be a blog about me happily using Flash..

I can honestly say, I wish they never bought Flash from Macromedia.
I hate adobe and I especially hate the fact that I'm dependant on them to earn my living.
Tess said…
Adobe has wasted my time and money. Asolutely terrible.
Unknown said…
ya adobe is starting to get on my nerve. Firstly all their software is buggy and their never fail to release a product that has major issues. Honestly with all the money they get from the ridiculously over priced software, they could at least invest in making a more reliable software( well they have to drag their costumers back one way or another [not saying that they purposely put errors in their software (sarcasism)]). I just was reading the adobe forums and I saw a costumer who had been using adobe since cs2 and posted a thread entitled "I hate you adobe. I hate you very much." The next reply to the topic was by an adobe employee [Bill Hunt] who started b****ing about the person's thread. Adobe is filled with arrogant employee who think that they have the best and most superior product on the market. I disagree 100% with adobe. If they were the best and greatest there would be no doubt in my mind that whenever a new update comes out, I should pay F***ing $1000 plus for the software and get my money's worth. Seriously adobe please for gods sake, provide me with reliable software. No wonder thousands of people pirate and torrent your software. [in case you did not figure it out, your product is a piece of s*** for the money that they are paying for it]......but why am i ranting on like this, Adobe will probably ignore these comments in this forum and their forum and will continue to provide buggy software. I hope Adobe realizes this or their ignorance will be their downfall.
Please!!! Don't forget eternal updates from version xx.xx.xx.xxxx.xxx.xxx01 to xx.xx.xx.xxxx.xxx.xxx02
But I have to say I'm seriously considering hating adobe from the cloud... :<

I've been looking at the HTML5 export in cs6 today and although it DOESN'T support actionscript -huh? Yeah, I know, they make it look like it does, but it doesn't...- it will allow you to use the same kind of setup in javascript that you are used to in Flash.

And even though I hate adobe, I like that they make the transition to html5 easier for me.. On the one hand: DAMN, on the other there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's called CreateJS.. Grant Skinner to the rescue... Adobe doesn't know it yet, but he's taking over :)
Brian McFadden said…
I made a small mistake registering Adobe dreamweaver when I selected the wrong version. Adobe will not accept as proof payment in a HTMl format or a TXT file. They dont respond to emails or even aknowledge complaints. I have never had such bad customer service. Cant get my money back. I wish Id have known before I decided to buy Adobe just what a awful and thouroughly dishonest company they are.
Brian McFadden said…
I made a small mistake registering Adobe dreamweaver when I selected the wrong version. Adobe will not accept as proof payment in a HTMl format or a TXT file. They dont respond to emails or even aknowledge complaints. I have never had such bad customer service. Cant get my money back. I wish Id have known before I decided to buy Adobe just what a awful and thouroughly dishonest company they are.
Lynn said…
I purchased CS5.5 through Journey Ed in Feb. 2012. I have tried 4 times in 11 months to install the product but this myidentit-e.com holds the KEY to ever getting it installed. Because I was a community Ed student I had no student ID, just a letter from the instructor. It took 4 frustrating tries to get the low down on what would be exceptable proof of enrollment and the original receipt from Journey Ed.
So now I have the "serial number", I go to install and I get an error7 message stating t there is a "common font" requirement. I have been on chat for 4 hours and it is still not resolved.
This is exactly the kind of problems I have been through all four times and it wears me down. I have to move on, Thanks Adobe for all the hours you have cost me and the $500. Still do not have use of the product.
Anonymous said…
Dead links on their website, poor support, annoyingly frequent updates that always interrupt your workflow and cause compatibility problems with third party software - Adobe stuff is just not reliable, not convenient, not user-oriented and just doesn't integrate, neither in my workflow nor in my computer nor in my life.

Right now I just wanted to install Adobe Connect, apparently I needed a "Meetings"-add-on (add on for what?), The biggest joke is that despite I didn't have it installed, a log-in-screen appeared, so I tried over and over again till I found out I was actually trying to log into something that wasn't even there. Then, trying to install it, I struggled with poor installation manuals, dead links on their website, requirement of Flash (god, have mercy), and Mac-software being WinZipped. How short-sighted can one be? My web-meeting ended before I could install the software.

With Adobe, you're not a user of working software, but you're an administrator of buggy crap.

If I could choose, I'd avoid Adobe completely, as they don't solve problems, they're rather quite good in creating them, but sometimes you are dependent on them and don't have a choice. If you can, run!
Anonymous said…
I don not like adobe any longer.
Once it was (the cd´s) it was a great tool for my creativity but now
they try to force me buying some abo using some creative cloud and old
Version (work well for me) not running any longer on my computer since i update my mac.

Update - update - update -update update update update = money noney money.

I say NO ...to all these Software developers who try to destroy my creativity
by trying to pull me down into your fucked technology world (because they have no glimpse
how creativity really works). Go away adobe

Psycandy said…
14 years later (2021) and nothing has changed. The software hit its design zenith years ago. I'm still working in Macromedia MX, 3DS Max and, frankly, Adobe no longer has any software that even comes close.Their suite of apps are no longer upgraded as they were before, where customers were lured by features... those days are long gone. The company has all but stopped development and instead is focused on fragmentation. Look! Instead of one super-app, we have thirteen thousand mini-apps, and that means you're getting a bargain! I'm glad Adobe are around, they represent the lowest a software company can sink, buying up and killing competition and extorting revenue for the return of... nothing. You don't own a thing, it's all for hire, temporary at best. I tell my clients I'll subscribe to Adobe... when my clients subscribe to me. Same model, same pricing. Of course, there are no takers. Nobody's that stupid.
OzWizard said…
How refreshing to find like minds (and fraternal cynicism!) I too googled I hate adobe, after years of unrequited emails, dead-end fonecalls, useless message boards et al ... anything but answers, and no satisfacion whatsoever through the "proper" channels.

I'm convinced that adobe (I can't bring myself to use a capital a) hates the world, and has no idea about the wants and needs of users in the creative space. Every single comment I read on this board resonates with me: from general dissatisfaction to the many specific shortcomings and failings of its apps.

Bring back CS3! Bring back FreeHand! They were SO much better than the current crop of jerky, unresponsive, hang-fire, counter-intuitive, cloud-based, UNOWNABLE software.

But what can be done about it? Nothing, I suspect, unless someone comes up with better alternatives, esp for Mac.

It's all SO ANNOYING!

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