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Not directly related but... I had to service a Windows 10 computer yesterday. It had Adobe Acrobat Reader DC installed. The computer was extremely slow (i3, 4 G

Not directly related but... I had to service a Windows 10 computer yesterday. It had Adobe Acrobat Reader DC installed. The computer was extremely slow (i3, 4 GB, non-SSD) thanks to the combination of system and software installed. Not that the software is that different from what many end-users would have: lenovo-problemware, norton, msoffice and a synaptics tool. Some of the processes taking memory, processor and disk were multiple instancies RdrCEF.exe, AcroCEF.exe and Acrobat Reader DC itself. And there wasn't any PDF open! Because of what Adobe turned out, and I'm not even talking about licenses here, it would be a favor to humanity if we try to undo "photoshop" as a synonym for image editing.

legrande 5y ago
> it would be a favor to humanity if we try to undo "photoshop" as a synonym for image editing Well it's already common vernacular that won't go away any time soon. Many people including myself have old versions of PS installed on some dusty machine and it does its job well. It's now impossible to get free/cracked versions of the latest PS because it's all cloud based now, but there is a large cohort of people using older versions.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  > It's now impossible to get free/cracked versions of the latest PS because it's all cloud based now, but there is a large cohort of people using older versions. That's objectively not true – I understand that there are a lot of cracked versions of the creative suite out there - perhaps a few months behind the latest release, but certainly not by much. As ever, this is the problem that makes me hate DRM: paying customers get a worse product. I have a legal license of CS6 and I am writing this comment on a Mac running 10.14 partly as a consequence (it is the last version of the OS to run 32 bit apps -- of which I have a fair few). I will not take out a subscription to Adobe to get a newer version -- I just will not do it. If I pirated everything, I'd be in a much "better position" in many ways.
  - legrande 5y ago
    > I understand that there are a lot of cracked versions of the creative suite out there I haven't looked, but it's my understanding that you need an ADOBE login that you use to interact with Creative Suite, so by 'cloud based' I mean the software is all Internet facing now. There are probably workarounds for that in the warez scene however.
  - LeonB 5y ago
    > this is the problem that makes me hate DRM: paying customers get a worse product Substitute the word “piracy” in place of DRM, and you’re closer to the cause. (Though I’d definitely concede that a lot of heavy-handed DRM and cloud-only is less about reducing “piracy” and more about controlling customers and enabling rent-seeking on a massive scale.)
anarticle 5y ago
As for naming, this has happened many times, you can see examples like Xerox, Kleenex, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark I noticed in the UK it is much more common. You can see it in terms like hoovering, sellotape, tipex, and biro. Never thought I'd see the day I post a quora but here we are! https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-British-use-the-word-hoover-instead-of-vacuum https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-British-use-the-word-hoover...
- kingcharles 5y ago
  What's odd is that, being a Brit in the UK I often use these generic trademarks out of habit. But, sometimes when I say Hoover here in the USA people get what I mean. So it must have had an effect over here, but smaller?
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    Hoover was a dominant brand in the US, but never fully generalized. So when you say hoover, many people in the US (especially when used in context, like "I need to hoover the carpet") will probably get what you are saying. My wife refers to "Lysoling" the counters, which isn't standard usage (and we usually use generic target brands anyway) but plenty of people we know get what she means.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Generic verb "hoover" is probably used more in the US as a deliberately informal/colloquial synonym to ingest or something like that. e.g. hoover up all your data.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        That probably has as much to do with J Edgar Hoover as it does with the Hoover vacuum cleaner company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
- 5y ago

legrande 5y ago

> it would be a favor to humanity if we try to undo "photoshop" as a synonym for image editing Well it's already common vernacular that won't go away any time soon. Many people including myself have old versions of PS installed on some dusty machine and it does its job well. It's now impossible to get free/cracked versions of the latest PS because it's all cloud based now, but there is a large cohort of people using older versions.

azalemeth 5y ago
> It's now impossible to get free/cracked versions of the latest PS because it's all cloud based now, but there is a large cohort of people using older versions. That's objectively not true – I understand that there are a lot of cracked versions of the creative suite out there - perhaps a few months behind the latest release, but certainly not by much. As ever, this is the problem that makes me hate DRM: paying customers get a worse product. I have a legal license of CS6 and I am writing this comment on a Mac running 10.14 partly as a consequence (it is the last version of the OS to run 32 bit apps -- of which I have a fair few). I will not take out a subscription to Adobe to get a newer version -- I just will not do it. If I pirated everything, I'd be in a much "better position" in many ways.
- legrande 5y ago
  > I understand that there are a lot of cracked versions of the creative suite out there I haven't looked, but it's my understanding that you need an ADOBE login that you use to interact with Creative Suite, so by 'cloud based' I mean the software is all Internet facing now. There are probably workarounds for that in the warez scene however.
- LeonB 5y ago
  > this is the problem that makes me hate DRM: paying customers get a worse product Substitute the word “piracy” in place of DRM, and you’re closer to the cause. (Though I’d definitely concede that a lot of heavy-handed DRM and cloud-only is less about reducing “piracy” and more about controlling customers and enabling rent-seeking on a massive scale.)

anarticle 5y ago

As for naming, this has happened many times, you can see examples like Xerox, Kleenex, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark I noticed in the UK it is much more common. You can see it in terms like hoovering, sellotape, tipex, and biro. Never thought I'd see the day I post a quora but here we are! https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-British-use-the-word-hoover-instead-of-vacuum https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-British-use-the-word-hoover...

kingcharles 5y ago
What's odd is that, being a Brit in the UK I often use these generic trademarks out of habit. But, sometimes when I say Hoover here in the USA people get what I mean. So it must have had an effect over here, but smaller?
- jacobr1 5y ago
  Hoover was a dominant brand in the US, but never fully generalized. So when you say hoover, many people in the US (especially when used in context, like "I need to hoover the carpet") will probably get what you are saying. My wife refers to "Lysoling" the counters, which isn't standard usage (and we usually use generic target brands anyway) but plenty of people we know get what she means.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Generic verb "hoover" is probably used more in the US as a deliberately informal/colloquial synonym to ingest or something like that. e.g. hoover up all your data.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      That probably has as much to do with J Edgar Hoover as it does with the Hoover vacuum cleaner company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover
5y ago