Seems there’s a lot of hatred out there for Adobe which, as we all know, has a pretty firm grasp on advertising’s creative community. In fact, there’s so much hatred, a site dedicated to that hatred, Dear Adobe, collect gripes about the company and its products. The number one gripe? “Why does the Acrobat Reader take two minutes to launch, and require updates twice a month, just to display PDF pages?”
The answer to that question? Who cares. Just use Foxit Reader (for Windows but available in Preview for Mac) and your Adobe Reader woes will be gone. That aside, there are hundreds of gripes on the site ranging from complaints about Photoshop, Adobe’s installer and feature bloat.
One of the funnier gripes reads, “Could you make Adobe Reader start up slower? I’d like to have enough time to go get a sandwich before I read a one page document.” We’ve all experienced that one.
Dear Adobe is a classic example of brand hate sites. Unfortunately, there’s really no way for Adobe themselves to step in and comment other than by clicking the Agree, Disagree or Inaccurate links and commenting on the blog (though there are plans to add features). That, however, hasn’t stopped Adobe from taking notice and contacting the creators of the site, Adam Miesel and Erik Frick.
On the blog, Erik writes, “Well, is Adobe listening then? Yes, they most certainly are. The site hadn’t been up for 48 hours when staff from Adobe first contacted us and the response has been very positive. We’re currently in touch with a couple of people at Adobe and working with them to craft all the gripes here into something they can use and hopefully take to heart.” That’s an encouraging sign but we all know software products do not change overnight.
Many are happy with the site and have left comments. One from James Hayward reads, “I get down on my knees and bow to you gods for giving me a new outlet for the stroke inducing stress that Adobe has put me through. I shall do my best to share it all in hopes that someone at Adobe cares, even the slightest, in their Grinch hearts.”
Sites like this are not new. This one just hits close to home for those in advertising’s creative community. It will be interesting to watch how Adobe reacts and how this al plays out.
