Can't uninstall Adobe apps without an account (2018)(feedback.photoshop.com)
feedback.photoshop.com
Can't uninstall Adobe apps without an account (2018)
https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/photoshop/cant-uninstall-adobe-apps-without-an-account/5f5f45ee4b561a3d4268bd5e
250 comments
I police that shit endlessly. I get I have not-normal expectations -- like, I HATE it when ANYTHING takes focus on its own -- but absolutely DO NOT make it hard for me to quit your app.
I don't use WebEx much, but its "Hey, I know you just tried to quit but don't you want me to hang out just in case" attitude makes me CRAZY.
I'm a little confused by your reference to the "tray" on OSX tho. Where's the tray? We have a dock, and we have a menu bar where some things go, but no tray that I'm aware of.
I don't use WebEx much, but its "Hey, I know you just tried to quit but don't you want me to hang out just in case" attitude makes me CRAZY.
I'm a little confused by your reference to the "tray" on OSX tho. Where's the tray? We have a dock, and we have a menu bar where some things go, but no tray that I'm aware of.
I HATE it when ANYTHING takes focus on its own
This didn't used to be possible in MacOS X. When I switched from Windows, it was such a lovely surprise I considered it one of the best reasons to make the change.
That didn't last. Maybe five years ago, something changed and MacOS allowed programs to hijack focus. I was so disappointed.
Apple seems to be (very slowly) getting back to fundamentals. I wish reverting this change was part of that program.
This didn't used to be possible in MacOS X. When I switched from Windows, it was such a lovely surprise I considered it one of the best reasons to make the change.
That didn't last. Maybe five years ago, something changed and MacOS allowed programs to hijack focus. I was so disappointed.
Apple seems to be (very slowly) getting back to fundamentals. I wish reverting this change was part of that program.
> This didn't used to be possible in MacOS X. When I switched from Windows, it was such a lovely surprise I considered it one of the best reasons to make the change.
Agreed. There's few seemingly "minor" things that can make me see bright red quite like this. It's such an actively hostile dark UX pattern. It should simply be made impossible.
Agreed. There's few seemingly "minor" things that can make me see bright red quite like this. It's such an actively hostile dark UX pattern. It should simply be made impossible.
I super agree with you. By tray I mean the thing on top right with the icons for various apps. I guess it's the menu bar.
What drives me crazy the most is I can see the context menu, for example for Webex, is disabled intentionally so we can't have the quit option there
What drives me crazy the most is I can see the context menu, for example for Webex, is disabled intentionally so we can't have the quit option there
I don't personally use Webex, but have you tried option + clicking the icon in the menu bar? That's the generally accepted way to reveal more context (for example, doing this to the wifi icon reveals a lot more detail about your connection).
I never deal with any of this sort of thing.
People think I'm weird or must struggle with bad UIs for being picky and only using older FOSS apps but IME your life/UX is actually a lot better for it.
People think I'm weird or must struggle with bad UIs for being picky and only using older FOSS apps but IME your life/UX is actually a lot better for it.
Same. About two years ago I fully switched to Linux, and at some
point this made me realise the full depth of all the Linux and
OSS arguments when my perspective wasn't limited to Windows
concepts anymore.
By now I do almost everything in the terminal except for web browsing. And what can I say, I do not miss the popups, confusing menus, dark UI patterns, and all the other bad ideas.
By now I do almost everything in the terminal except for web browsing. And what can I say, I do not miss the popups, confusing menus, dark UI patterns, and all the other bad ideas.
All this crap is why I'm currently considering Linux over macOS (which I'm currently on most of the time). In time, it might be the refuge for people suffering from computers and operating systems that wants to control rather than be controlled.
I no longer use Windows on any of my PCs. I have currently two instances that run as VMs.
One dedicated solely for remote connection to my work. The company insists on software to scan that my PC is "secure", so I give them a finger with an almost virgin Windows install. Their crap can work only on Windows, so I don't actually have any choice.
Another is for any application that I use that I absolutely can't find replacement for on Linux.
I also have separate Linux VMs for suspect software like Zoom that I have to use but I don't trust to run on my machine or try to take over my desktop.
One dedicated solely for remote connection to my work. The company insists on software to scan that my PC is "secure", so I give them a finger with an almost virgin Windows install. Their crap can work only on Windows, so I don't actually have any choice.
Another is for any application that I use that I absolutely can't find replacement for on Linux.
I also have separate Linux VMs for suspect software like Zoom that I have to use but I don't trust to run on my machine or try to take over my desktop.
> The company insists on software to scan that my PC is "secure", so I give them a finger with an almost virgin Windows install. Their crap can work only on Windows, so I don't actually have any choice.
Maybe this software actually is crap and you know this for a fact. Maybe whoever is in charge doesn't know what they're doing. If so maybe ignore this comment.
With that said though, the principle to only allow "secure" systems for remote access sounds absolutely reasonable.
Having been on the other side of this situation, I have to say users like you are a real pain to deal with sometimes. There are always a few who "know their stuff thank-you-very-much", and feel that they need to "give the finger" to whatever measures are taken to secure things.
Try to see it from the IT-sec guy's perspective. Maybe some "crap" endpoint security software on the PCs isn't the end of the world if it helps keep things secure?
Maybe this software actually is crap and you know this for a fact. Maybe whoever is in charge doesn't know what they're doing. If so maybe ignore this comment.
With that said though, the principle to only allow "secure" systems for remote access sounds absolutely reasonable.
Having been on the other side of this situation, I have to say users like you are a real pain to deal with sometimes. There are always a few who "know their stuff thank-you-very-much", and feel that they need to "give the finger" to whatever measures are taken to secure things.
Try to see it from the IT-sec guy's perspective. Maybe some "crap" endpoint security software on the PCs isn't the end of the world if it helps keep things secure?
I have two laptops, a work laptop and a personal laptop. The work laptop is supplied by my employer and as far as I'm concerned they can install whatever they damn well please on it, because the only thing I use it for, and I mean the only thing, is work - no Internet searches, no random software downloads, not even HN. A patch of tape over the camera and away we go.
My personal laptop stays personal. It's mine and doesn't belong to anyone else. I never use it for work, even if alongside me during working hours. Zero crapware, minimal AV.
I have the same approach to phones. There's my phone, and my work phone. I was pressured to put Outlook, Teams on my personal phone since my work phone is switched off out of hours - I nearly succumbed, until that Office Portal app wanted to 'manage my device'. Nope. Our primary on-call comms mechanism remains SMS/direct call.
My personal laptop stays personal. It's mine and doesn't belong to anyone else. I never use it for work, even if alongside me during working hours. Zero crapware, minimal AV.
I have the same approach to phones. There's my phone, and my work phone. I was pressured to put Outlook, Teams on my personal phone since my work phone is switched off out of hours - I nearly succumbed, until that Office Portal app wanted to 'manage my device'. Nope. Our primary on-call comms mechanism remains SMS/direct call.
Sounds like an excellent setup as long as you don't mind the additional hardware.
The issue is this practice does not achieve anything and only achieves to annoy me as a person who must navigate unnecessary complexity of trying to do honest work.
If employer is really interested in achieving some measure of security, there would have to be separate computer configured and locked to only allow it to be used for work.
That would, I think be "reasonable".
What I think is not reasonable is meddling in my own machine which I treated as my own until one day my employer said "Sorry, from now your private PC is ours to audit because we are not willing to spend equivalent of two days of your income to provide a machine for you to securely, conveniently and reasonably access our system".
Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux, they just have assumed that I must have some kind of PC and that that PC is running either Windows or Linux. And so they configured their system so that before I can use Citrix (which works perfectly fine on Linux) their piece of crap written for Windows or Macos (no Linux version) must run and report what is installed and running on my machine for their own silly needs.
No, that is not "reasonable" and for that my honest middle finger.
If employer is really interested in achieving some measure of security, there would have to be separate computer configured and locked to only allow it to be used for work.
That would, I think be "reasonable".
What I think is not reasonable is meddling in my own machine which I treated as my own until one day my employer said "Sorry, from now your private PC is ours to audit because we are not willing to spend equivalent of two days of your income to provide a machine for you to securely, conveniently and reasonably access our system".
Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux, they just have assumed that I must have some kind of PC and that that PC is running either Windows or Linux. And so they configured their system so that before I can use Citrix (which works perfectly fine on Linux) their piece of crap written for Windows or Macos (no Linux version) must run and report what is installed and running on my machine for their own silly needs.
No, that is not "reasonable" and for that my honest middle finger.
Ok so it seems the real problem is that your employer does not provide you with the tool you need to perform your work, i.e. a computer. If they did, they would have the responsibility and ability to secure it. By methods which could include installing some auditing software.
It's obviously not really reasonable to expect you to install such things on your private computer. Sounds like there could actually be some legal issues with such practice?
If it was your own choice to use your private computer then that's a different story. But it sounds like it is definitely not by choice.
> Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux
2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-)
It's obviously not really reasonable to expect you to install such things on your private computer. Sounds like there could actually be some legal issues with such practice?
If it was your own choice to use your private computer then that's a different story. But it sounds like it is definitely not by choice.
> Nobody really cared for the fact that my all machines are running Linux
2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-)
> 2021 is the year Linux becomes a mainstream desktop OS right? ;-)
Except I have been running Linux on desktops since 1999. I have Debian server that has been regularly updated since 2000 (that includes hardware changes and moving OS image from HDD to HDD and finally to SSD).
Except I have been running Linux on desktops since 1999. I have Debian server that has been regularly updated since 2000 (that includes hardware changes and moving OS image from HDD to HDD and finally to SSD).
The fact that you are a long-time user doesn't make it mainstream though. Sorry. I'm with you in hoping for that to change!
I am in charge of IT security for my company and in my experience users like you get put in a tough place. On one hand, you want the freedom to work however you like, but on the other hand the company has real requirements and limitations imposed on them that necessitate dictating how end users compute. I am also guessing that for every user like yourself who would gladly use a company provided device to keep their personal and work computing separate, there is a corresponding user who absolutely will not tolerate being forced to use an additional corporate machine and will complain until blue in the face about it. It's a lose-lose situation for IT.
There is also the matter of endpoint protection to consider. If I am allowing a personal device to connect to my environment, how do I know that device is secure? The only way to have any level of assurance to that fact is to install remote monitoring agents, inspect the configuration of the system, and restrict administrative permissions so the end-user (or an attacker who hijacks the end user's access) cannot mess with things in such a way as to compromise the already shaky ground the integrity of that system stands upon.
If I worked at your company, I would give two options: either use a corporate machine for work activities, or if using a personal machine for whatever reason then IT gets administrative control of the device. There is no third option. And before IT assumes administrative rights to manage the device, the end user is signing an acceptable use policy that they agree to any and all IT security controls placed upon the device. If that is unacceptable then the alternative is always to use the corporate device.
I am not sure if you're an FTE or a contractor or what your locale is, but IMO imposing that kind of control over a privately owned device without an agreement would be at best inappropriate, and potentially illegal. My response would have been "No, thank you." I do however sympathize that it is not always possible to take that stance.
There is also the matter of endpoint protection to consider. If I am allowing a personal device to connect to my environment, how do I know that device is secure? The only way to have any level of assurance to that fact is to install remote monitoring agents, inspect the configuration of the system, and restrict administrative permissions so the end-user (or an attacker who hijacks the end user's access) cannot mess with things in such a way as to compromise the already shaky ground the integrity of that system stands upon.
If I worked at your company, I would give two options: either use a corporate machine for work activities, or if using a personal machine for whatever reason then IT gets administrative control of the device. There is no third option. And before IT assumes administrative rights to manage the device, the end user is signing an acceptable use policy that they agree to any and all IT security controls placed upon the device. If that is unacceptable then the alternative is always to use the corporate device.
I am not sure if you're an FTE or a contractor or what your locale is, but IMO imposing that kind of control over a privately owned device without an agreement would be at best inappropriate, and potentially illegal. My response would have been "No, thank you." I do however sympathize that it is not always possible to take that stance.
I don't know what's the solution. I'm trying to get back to linux but then my suspend doesn't work, touchpad feels sluggish and my battery lasts 2 hours instead of 7+.
Not to mention things like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874
Not to mention things like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874
There are tools to debug power issues on Linux laptops. I use these from time to time especially when I am going to be sailing for couple of days.
I can use my t440s (7yo) for over 24 hours on three batteries, internal 3 cell, and external 3 cell and 9 cell. I use it for light development, reading PDFs, some web, etc.
There are also laptops that are more Linux friendly than others. It is best to buy laptop specifically for Linux use and do research before the purchase.
I can use my t440s (7yo) for over 24 hours on three batteries, internal 3 cell, and external 3 cell and 9 cell. I use it for light development, reading PDFs, some web, etc.
There are also laptops that are more Linux friendly than others. It is best to buy laptop specifically for Linux use and do research before the purchase.
Maybe I'm being an asshole and should "submit a patch" but I really get annoyed when basic things don't work. I'm happy to debug custom software, but I don't understand how things like battery management isn't solved.
I've used it on many laptops including a fully specced Dell XPS 13 (which burned out after a small spill on the keyboard)
I've used it on many laptops including a fully specced Dell XPS 13 (which burned out after a small spill on the keyboard)
Mine was once drenched completely in hot sweet latte and once submerged in mineral water (don't ask how...) It still works with no issues even though both times I had to disassemble completely and wash all parts including motherboard. The mineral water got between lcd leaves so I had to separate, wash and dry individual layers of LCD.
My tip is to always have IPA, distilled water and tools to disassemble and clean your laptop.
My tip is to always have IPA, distilled water and tools to disassemble and clean your laptop.
How do you wash electronic components without causing damage?
Most boards can be washed safely but there are some components that can be damaged.
Safest method is to use distilled, deoxygenated water (aka electronic water) to remove most contaminants, followed by 99% isopropyl alcohol or 96% ethyl alcohol to remove the rest and also water.
Don't skimp on water and alcohol, submerge the board and use brush while submerged, to pull and dilute contaminants.
Just never use tap or mineral water. You can use regular distilled water as long as you do it quickly, but unless it is deoxygenated it will be corroding so don't leave it in water for long.
Alcohol is there mostly to dilute water so that it dries out very quickly. Without alcohol water could stay under components for a long time and kill or damage your board.
Alcohols can damage some plastic components, so don't keep it in alcohol fo too long, either.
Safest method is to use distilled, deoxygenated water (aka electronic water) to remove most contaminants, followed by 99% isopropyl alcohol or 96% ethyl alcohol to remove the rest and also water.
Don't skimp on water and alcohol, submerge the board and use brush while submerged, to pull and dilute contaminants.
Just never use tap or mineral water. You can use regular distilled water as long as you do it quickly, but unless it is deoxygenated it will be corroding so don't leave it in water for long.
Alcohol is there mostly to dilute water so that it dries out very quickly. Without alcohol water could stay under components for a long time and kill or damage your board.
Alcohols can damage some plastic components, so don't keep it in alcohol fo too long, either.
Water is not instantly harmful to unpowered electronics, especially distilled water. Just make sure there's no power and go to town.
I would add that washing with water is normal part of board production. Fluxes are designed to be water soluble and a lot of fluxes are washed with water with addition of saponifiers.
It is also normal to wash a board in ultrasonic cleaner after any rework or at the end of production process (especially in small scale production).
It is also normal to wash a board in ultrasonic cleaner after any rework or at the end of production process (especially in small scale production).
Is it really worth your time?
Depends. If you decide it is not possible for you to spill on your laptop or the loss of your laptop is worth less than half a day of your time and keeping two bottles one of clean water and one of clean alcohol, then sure, just ignore this.
On the other hand if you own an expensive machine that can be reasonably disassembled (ie. almost anything else than a Mac) and you plan to use it for a long time and you don't have any other insurance against spill, then you might be able to save a lot of money with a very small amount of effort.
My laptop was fully beefed up Lenovo T440s and I live in Poland. In Poland, this laptop represented about 3-4 average monthly salaries. Not much compared to half a day of effort to disassemble, clean and reassemble again.
Half a day assumes you have no idea what you are doing and you are need extra time to figure out what to do, find videos on Internet, figure out why you can't pull a part and what still keeps it in place, etc.
For a person that knows what they are doing this is half an hour of effort.
On the other hand if you own an expensive machine that can be reasonably disassembled (ie. almost anything else than a Mac) and you plan to use it for a long time and you don't have any other insurance against spill, then you might be able to save a lot of money with a very small amount of effort.
My laptop was fully beefed up Lenovo T440s and I live in Poland. In Poland, this laptop represented about 3-4 average monthly salaries. Not much compared to half a day of effort to disassemble, clean and reassemble again.
Half a day assumes you have no idea what you are doing and you are need extra time to figure out what to do, find videos on Internet, figure out why you can't pull a part and what still keeps it in place, etc.
For a person that knows what they are doing this is half an hour of effort.
There's also a big risk of repair going wrong. But you're right: I was judging the situation from the SV bubble.
What distro and laptop do you use currently?
It's indeed annoying. More so that it generally is solved but is to be found somewhere in the fragmented linux ecosystem.
I had no issues with my laptop and it worked better than windows which turns it into a jetengine for some reason except for bluetooth earbuds for which i needed a fork of pulseaudio or so....
It's indeed annoying. More so that it generally is solved but is to be found somewhere in the fragmented linux ecosystem.
I had no issues with my laptop and it worked better than windows which turns it into a jetengine for some reason except for bluetooth earbuds for which i needed a fork of pulseaudio or so....
Right now I'm back to osx but I'm really missing a good tiling manager like i3wm. As for the future I'm looking at system76 desktops, but still undecided (especially since apple's m1 hardware)
That horrible battery life on Ubuntu on an XPS 13 sounds like something else wrong. Several of my coworkers are running exactly that (over different generations even) and it's been with no tweaks.
You simply need a laptop which was designed for Linux, not the one on which you can install it. I recommend this one: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.
I have used Thinkpads for decades with Linux.
There are, of course, rough spots. But overall Thinkpads are just so much better machines.
There are, of course, rough spots. But overall Thinkpads are just so much better machines.
Perhaps this is why I always hear it's the year of the linux desktop.
Linux desktop has been falling behind, IMO.
How do you feel it is falling behind? Not disagreeing or agreeing, just curious for your thoughts.
In the march forwards, e.g. GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3, there are a number of regressions mixed in with the improvements. I think tackling overall UX may be seen as unattractive work compared to tacking on new features.
For example, GNOME Files (formerly Nautilus) and the GTK file chooser are not even as good as competitors from the 1990s (like the Mac or Windows equivalents). GIMP and Inkscape are also noticeable steps down from the equivalent software we used in the 1990s (not just the well-known Adobe products, but also products from Corel, Macromedia, etc.)
My impression is that the Linux desktop is playing catch-up with the Windows and Mac desktops, but since Microsoft and Apple have better funding it’s an impossible job—the target is moving too fast. In an effort to catch up with modern UIs, features that used to work are getting broken or the UX is degrading. The GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3 switch is just one example. I’m not saying GNOME 2 is better than GNOME 3 overall, just that large-scale changes are moving too fast and the polish and long-term fixes are coming too slowly by comparison.
Linux is usually my primary desktop and when I switch to my Mac it feels like a breath of fresh air.
For example, GNOME Files (formerly Nautilus) and the GTK file chooser are not even as good as competitors from the 1990s (like the Mac or Windows equivalents). GIMP and Inkscape are also noticeable steps down from the equivalent software we used in the 1990s (not just the well-known Adobe products, but also products from Corel, Macromedia, etc.)
My impression is that the Linux desktop is playing catch-up with the Windows and Mac desktops, but since Microsoft and Apple have better funding it’s an impossible job—the target is moving too fast. In an effort to catch up with modern UIs, features that used to work are getting broken or the UX is degrading. The GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3 switch is just one example. I’m not saying GNOME 2 is better than GNOME 3 overall, just that large-scale changes are moving too fast and the polish and long-term fixes are coming too slowly by comparison.
Linux is usually my primary desktop and when I switch to my Mac it feels like a breath of fresh air.
With regards to the battery issues, I'd suggest seeing if the TLP utility is available in your distro's packages.
It's more than doubled battery "life" (== time to discharge) for me.
It's more than doubled battery "life" (== time to discharge) for me.
I think you might be interested in Qubes OS [0], which provides secure and user-friendly hardware virtualization for all your VMs, including Windows.
[0] https://qubes-os.org
[0] https://qubes-os.org
Honestly I would love it if more users would adopt similar practices. My only question would be how do we validate that the Windows guests remain isolated from the host. Depending on the virtualization software that is an achievable task.
Imagine a world where users only ran the bare minimum software necessary for an atomically specific work task. It sounds like pure joy from my perspective.
Imagine a world where users only ran the bare minimum software necessary for an atomically specific work task. It sounds like pure joy from my perspective.
Do you run all of these VMs on linux?
Yes.
I also have a bunch of other VMs. For example, I keep my toolchains for embedded development in separate VMs so that I can trust they still work years later when I need to do some quick correction to some project of mine. These have auto updates turned off. I hate when I want to quickly change something and program the device but first I have to investigate why the tool chain no longer works.
Not all of these VMs are active at the same time. I usually have 2 or 3 VMs active, some paused and most turned off.
I also have a bunch of other VMs. For example, I keep my toolchains for embedded development in separate VMs so that I can trust they still work years later when I need to do some quick correction to some project of mine. These have auto updates turned off. I hate when I want to quickly change something and program the device but first I have to investigate why the tool chain no longer works.
Not all of these VMs are active at the same time. I usually have 2 or 3 VMs active, some paused and most turned off.
I do similar things. Everything I run is built on top of LXD or KVM so that it remains compatible across time and is not beholden to anything but the Linux kernel, with disk images backed up at key points of the installation process. All of the build scripts are housed at [1] and then I have a set of machine-specific scripts that leverage those to rebuild any of my virtual systems in a single command with no data loss. Press a button, walk away, and in half an hour I have a pristine system with everything I need installed and my data drive mounted.
Any time I'm working on a machine that was set up non-deterministically, I feel vulnerable...
[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/virtual-builders
Any time I'm working on a machine that was set up non-deterministically, I feel vulnerable...
[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/virtual-builders
This brings to mind, fondly, my gentoo days. Just never had time to continue to spend that much time controlling the config vs using it.
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This is a great idea, thank you!
I recently started playing around with libvirt/QEMU on Linux and was amazed how well the VMs work, especially when you have two video cards plugged in and can do PCI passthrough.
It's so seamless. I now run my Windows "VM" on that, and works fantastically. I have it installed to a separate SSD as well (I was curious if it would work) and performance is excellent.
It's so seamless. I now run my Windows "VM" on that, and works fantastically. I have it installed to a separate SSD as well (I was curious if it would work) and performance is excellent.
Yeah I was watching a video[1] about QEMU vs virtual box comparison yesterday on youtube and the guy doing it found that the QEMU version was faster than his host machine in some cases. It was confusing!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKQfeUNTCE
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKQfeUNTCE
It's one argument in favor of having the OS determine how software is in- and uninstalled, instead of delegating it to an application supplied by the developer.
I mean in theory on Mac you can just remove the .app file.
I would like the 'profile' files for an application to be a bit more obvious though, e.g. stored in /Users/<username>/Application Data/Adobe instead of the deeply nested and hidden-by-default Library folder.
I mean in theory on Mac you can just remove the .app file.
I would like the 'profile' files for an application to be a bit more obvious though, e.g. stored in /Users/<username>/Application Data/Adobe instead of the deeply nested and hidden-by-default Library folder.
Yeah, Adobe actually sticks their numerous config files and background executables in about 6 different places in macOS, so true uninstall is only within reach of the technical and dedicated.
That drives me batty, but they get away with it even on my machine because, well, they're Adobe.
But I think even people like me with 15 years of pictures in Lightroom are seriously eyeing the door. I'd LOVE to find something I could use at trust as well, but I also have little time to search, and Adobe isn't annoying me QUITE enough yet.
But they're already on the wrong side of the "delight/annoy" barrier, if you know what I mean.
But I think even people like me with 15 years of pictures in Lightroom are seriously eyeing the door. I'd LOVE to find something I could use at trust as well, but I also have little time to search, and Adobe isn't annoying me QUITE enough yet.
But they're already on the wrong side of the "delight/annoy" barrier, if you know what I mean.
If you're a power user, then I'd strongly recommend RawTherapee. It's more clunky than Lightroom, but its features are on par with or better than Lightroom, far as quality and choice.
You'll probably have to spend some time playing with it to find your "look", but once you do, Lightroom can't come close.
That said, it's missing a great organization/sorting workflow and painted adjustments, so if you rely on the latter or expect the former in your RAW processor, it might not be for you. A fantastic (commercial) alternative is CaptureOne. It's the Rolls Royce far as I'm concerned. Strongly recommend you stay away from Darktable, because it's close enough to Lightroom (but not as good) that you'll get frustrated.
Hope this helps!
You'll probably have to spend some time playing with it to find your "look", but once you do, Lightroom can't come close.
That said, it's missing a great organization/sorting workflow and painted adjustments, so if you rely on the latter or expect the former in your RAW processor, it might not be for you. A fantastic (commercial) alternative is CaptureOne. It's the Rolls Royce far as I'm concerned. Strongly recommend you stay away from Darktable, because it's close enough to Lightroom (but not as good) that you'll get frustrated.
Hope this helps!
If it’s bad for workflow and sorting, it’s a nonstarter for me.
There are apps like App Delete that help there. Once installed, it can detect an app in the trash and remove the hidden parts too. That said, it would be helpful if this was built in...
In theory you can remove the folder in Windows. It will leave crap behind but so will deleting .app on mac. Not much of a difference IMO. Both are broken by design.
That's not quite true. If you delete an app from the app folder on a Mac, 99% of the time you'll get 100% of the binaries associated with the app. You'll leave behind inert configuration information in /Library and any relevant ~/Library folders, but that's all.
On Windows, binaries end up strewn all over the place, including C:\Windows, which is one reason that C:\Windows grows inexorably over time (even under 10) if you frequently install and uninstall software, and the only approved-by-MSFT approach to shrinking it is a wipe and reinstall.
Now, the Mac doesn't prevent installers from doing goofy stuff, or from dropping binaries more widely. VMWare, for example, does this, but VMWare is also doing something more elaborate than an Office app. Adobe does this, but that's Adobe being a jerk -- there's no technical reason they need to do it.
And anyway, you can easily go into the folders in /Library & etc to zap the leftover stuff if you want -- there's no Registry or anything that would cry foul. It's just that most people don't bother.
On Windows, binaries end up strewn all over the place, including C:\Windows, which is one reason that C:\Windows grows inexorably over time (even under 10) if you frequently install and uninstall software, and the only approved-by-MSFT approach to shrinking it is a wipe and reinstall.
Now, the Mac doesn't prevent installers from doing goofy stuff, or from dropping binaries more widely. VMWare, for example, does this, but VMWare is also doing something more elaborate than an Office app. Adobe does this, but that's Adobe being a jerk -- there's no technical reason they need to do it.
And anyway, you can easily go into the folders in /Library & etc to zap the leftover stuff if you want -- there's no Registry or anything that would cry foul. It's just that most people don't bother.
> On Windows, binaries end up strewn all over the place, including C:\Windows, which is one reason that C:\Windows grows inexorably over time
Are you sure about this? I mean I know for a fact that it happens but in my experience this is rare. I very much doubt that it's enough to make any real difference to the total size of the Windows folder.
I PowerShell'ed through all exe-files and DLLs in C:\Windows and C:\Windows\System32 on my private computer ("188 programs installed" according to Control Panel) and I couldn't find anything that didn't look like Windows defaults (i.e. Microsoft stuff basically) or drivers (found lots of Intel, Logitech, etc. Some Apple).
Are you sure about this? I mean I know for a fact that it happens but in my experience this is rare. I very much doubt that it's enough to make any real difference to the total size of the Windows folder.
I PowerShell'ed through all exe-files and DLLs in C:\Windows and C:\Windows\System32 on my private computer ("188 programs installed" according to Control Panel) and I couldn't find anything that didn't look like Windows defaults (i.e. Microsoft stuff basically) or drivers (found lots of Intel, Logitech, etc. Some Apple).
Yes. It's an ongoing problem. It has to do with how Windows manages something called Side by Side (usually SxS).
We make Windows software. We install and uninstall a LOT. Windows folders on our text machines balloon to alarming sizes, at which point it's time for a new VM (or, if it's your laptop, it's time to wipe and start over).
We make Windows software. We install and uninstall a LOT. Windows folders on our text machines balloon to alarming sizes, at which point it's time for a new VM (or, if it's your laptop, it's time to wipe and start over).
Does refresh cleanup the rot, or you need a real reinstall?
Oh SxS. I thought that was for System stuff only.
There's a lot wrong with mobile, but one of the things they absolutely do right is giving you the tools to treat your apps like cattle. We need that on the desktop.
> I don't know how we got to this state that we don't control our own basic processes and how they behave.
If the system be designed such that the task of uninstalling lies with the program itself rather than some other program then one never really did.
I understand this design not. I would assume that uninstalling the program means deleting some set of files and perhaps registry keys on Windows, or is there more to it?
If the system be designed such that the task of uninstalling lies with the program itself rather than some other program then one never really did.
I understand this design not. I would assume that uninstalling the program means deleting some set of files and perhaps registry keys on Windows, or is there more to it?
It's a race to the bottom. The more idiot-proof electronics become, the more widely they can be adopted. How do you make something idiot-proof? You treat the users like idiots. The more idiot users you have, the smaller the fraction that actually give a damn about anything beyond whether it turns on and browses the internet.
Maybe you should give serious thought to Linux. I am not missing OS X or Windows one bit.
I'm really comfortable with Linux, but as I mentioned in another comment I find a lot of usability issues there as well, at least on laptops.
Maybe I'm just getting burned out on computers, but I'm really considering going rms-style with a desktop computer, an e-ink display with i3wm and sticking to text-only. I really think we're regressing in terms of tech and ux and am finding it less and less tolerable. In my day to day I'm dealing with go, k8s, elixir, js, vue, various deployment and monitoring solutions, etc, I don't want to fight just to keep a baseline OS functionality uncluttered.
Maybe I'm just getting burned out on computers, but I'm really considering going rms-style with a desktop computer, an e-ink display with i3wm and sticking to text-only. I really think we're regressing in terms of tech and ux and am finding it less and less tolerable. In my day to day I'm dealing with go, k8s, elixir, js, vue, various deployment and monitoring solutions, etc, I don't want to fight just to keep a baseline OS functionality uncluttered.
You don’t have to go full caveman. i3wm (I use xmonad), browser, terminal, and your favorite editor/IDE should do you good.
You only have all this software bothering you because you chose it over alternatives. (OK there are some cases where choices are forced upon us but I don’t see those in your examples)
You only have all this software bothering you because you chose it over alternatives. (OK there are some cases where choices are forced upon us but I don’t see those in your examples)
But then you probably don't need the Creative Cloud apps for your daily work. That's the where the real challenge comes in.
True. If I did I’d run them in a VM (Qubes?) it a dedicated host.
I wish I had this capability on my Android phone. There are utilities like SuperFreezZ to force background apps to close, but the fact that one is necessary is an indicator that the OS itself is not designed for a user to control what is happening in the background.
Can’t close Chrome either, because that will exit Google Chat as well.
I can't imagine they don't have a meeting with 12 people around a huge table and no one says "but if we do X, we break Y".
Isn't that being professional?
Isn't that being professional?
The sort of manager that wants to bully the users into not uninstalling the product is also the sort of manager to bully the developers into doing it, even if they know it will break things.
If you do that, you'll be labelled with "negative attitude" on your next evaluation. Been there, done that, and it wasn't even at Adobe.
Being professional stopped counting a long time ago - look at what Google, Microsoft, Apple and most other big companies are doing. People are afraid to update but have little choice.
How many times have people typed passwords into something dreadfully insecure because of a focus stolen at an inopportune time?
You said it yourself before you even started the list: OSX
Apple are one of the biggest offenders of "Don't you dare do what you want with your device. We'll tell you what you want to do"
Unfortunately now OSX is going in the same direction of the users not owning their hardware/software as with iOS. And many users get sucked into it because it looks pretty
Apple are one of the biggest offenders of "Don't you dare do what you want with your device. We'll tell you what you want to do"
Unfortunately now OSX is going in the same direction of the users not owning their hardware/software as with iOS. And many users get sucked into it because it looks pretty
If Adobe was good OSX citizen you could uninstall any of their apps by dragging them into the Trash. OSX has always been great for making it easy to uninstall apps.
It's because they use a custom installer that dumps code all over the filesystem that makes Adobe apps are difficult to uninstall.
It's because they use a custom installer that dumps code all over the filesystem that makes Adobe apps are difficult to uninstall.
>Unfortunately now OSX is going in the same direction of the users not owning their hardware/software as with iOS
FUD.
The only restrictions on MacOS are reasonable defaults to prevent unsigned, non-app-store programs from running. Given that there are many more users like my 80 year old mother than there HN-types, this is FINE, since those settings are easy to turn off.
Windows, btw, does the same thing on home versions -- except its "S Mode" is WAY more fiddly to get rid of, and once turned off cannot be turned back on.
FUD.
The only restrictions on MacOS are reasonable defaults to prevent unsigned, non-app-store programs from running. Given that there are many more users like my 80 year old mother than there HN-types, this is FINE, since those settings are easy to turn off.
Windows, btw, does the same thing on home versions -- except its "S Mode" is WAY more fiddly to get rid of, and once turned off cannot be turned back on.
Not true in the slightest. You can disable (the sane IMO) defaults and run anything on macOS to your hearts desire.
macOS is nothing like iOS WRT apps you can install and run.
Turning off Gatekeeper is literally a single terminal command. (sudo spctl --master-disable)
macOS is nothing like iOS WRT apps you can install and run.
Turning off Gatekeeper is literally a single terminal command. (sudo spctl --master-disable)
And how many average computer users even know what a terminal is, let alone have ever used it
I personally think if you cannot run that simple command and don't know what Terminal.app is then the defaults are correct for you. For power users you can make macOS as open as you want is all I was getting at.
Again, just my personal opinion.
Again, just my personal opinion.
Luckily I run Windows and experience no such issues. I'm in complete control of my computer. Downloaded a program to disable all spying and get rid of all annoyances with just one click of a button. You can't do that with Apple or Android.
I'm not entirely sure if you're not being ironic or not but anyway.
Windows has a habit of undoing such changes with seemingly random updates and kind of reaches a point where if you really want to get and keep complete control and keep up with the updates you end up doing more tweaking than a competent mainstream linux user has to fix up initial kinks like getting bluetooth to work with everything or running the occasional non-supported software.
I get updates every few months, after installing them I click the button in the program again, usually nothing changes, all my privacy settings remain intact. I understand you have been conditioned to think MS bad G$$gle good, but Windows gives you much more control and freedom than your Apple or G$$gle operating system.
>I understand you have been conditioned to think MS bad G$$gle good
That's a lot of assumptions you're making there bud.
>Windows gives you much more control and freedom than your Apple or G$$gle operating system.
But I run Linux and Windows.
That's a lot of assumptions you're making there bud.
>Windows gives you much more control and freedom than your Apple or G$$gle operating system.
But I run Linux and Windows.
You've GOT to be joking.
Honestly it sounds like you need to learn how to operate your machine. These are all really solvable problems.
The process to eliminate items from startup is quite straightforward. You can do it in system preferences under your user startup items area - or wipe them from the CLI.
The process to eliminate items from startup is quite straightforward. You can do it in system preferences under your user startup items area - or wipe them from the CLI.
I try to avoid Adobe like the plague these days. It's not always easy, but thankfully it's getting easier.
As nobody has mentioned them yet, I would highly recommend Affinity products as alternatives to Adobe software. Coupled with Sketch, I've been able to avoid Adobe products for 2+ years now.
Affinity have replacements for Photoshop (Photo), InDesign (Publisher) and Illustrator (Designer), currently on sale for not too far off the cost of a single month of Adobe CC. They might not have 100% feature parity, but they're really very good.
As nobody has mentioned them yet, I would highly recommend Affinity products as alternatives to Adobe software. Coupled with Sketch, I've been able to avoid Adobe products for 2+ years now.
Affinity have replacements for Photoshop (Photo), InDesign (Publisher) and Illustrator (Designer), currently on sale for not too far off the cost of a single month of Adobe CC. They might not have 100% feature parity, but they're really very good.
I've switched to Affinity from Adobe and what I most like about their products is that they make me actually enjoy using them. And this something that is pretty hard to get right.
When using Adobe software, there were so many moment such as "Why doesn't this work?", "How do I use this tool?", "How do I do x?", "Where is x?" and I had to search for solution. With Affinity however, everything works just as I expect them to and it is very rare for me to actively search for solutions.
When using Adobe software, there were so many moment such as "Why doesn't this work?", "How do I use this tool?", "How do I do x?", "Where is x?" and I had to search for solution. With Affinity however, everything works just as I expect them to and it is very rare for me to actively search for solutions.
Emphatic second for the Affinity recommendation. The three products are extremely easy to use and have a consistent look and feel. I bought the books for Photo and Designer and never used them because 99% of the features are intuitive and every time I got stuck someone on the very active user forum set me straight. Also, the tutorials and how-to videos are excellent. You can buy a Windows laptop and all three Affinity products for less than one year’s subscription to Adobe.
To add to the Adobe alternatives recommendations - DaVinci Resolve is a much better video editor than Premiere, and it's free for personal use. I still pay for my creative cloud subscription, but prefer to use Resolve for its ease of use.
Been eyeing up Resolve, mostly because After Effects has gotten so rusty and janky over the past 10 years of neglect, used to be god-tier software but just doesn't run as nice as it used to or use anywhere near your full machine power.
You had much experience with those parts of Resolve? How does it stack up? Thanks!
You had much experience with those parts of Resolve? How does it stack up? Thanks!
As someone who is very used to Premiere but hasn't used it in 2 years, is Resolve really "that good" yet? I'm also scared of having to learn a new UI. :P
Currently getting into it, I'm a long time Premiere editor. It's that good. In many ways it feels more polished than Premiere and the grading tools are definitely way beyond what Premiere offers.
It’s great and not hard to learn. I find most NLEs fairly similar for the meat and potatoes of editing.
And as the parent said, it’s got a free version. And it isn’t a gimped free version either. I’ve used it on production projects.
It also comes with Fusion built in which is a great effects app. Using nodes has been a fun new approach to effects that I’ve really enjoyed.
And the paid Studio version is a once-off purchase. No subscriptions and free updates. A breath of fresh air.
It also comes with Fusion built in which is a great effects app. Using nodes has been a fun new approach to effects that I’ve really enjoyed.
And the paid Studio version is a once-off purchase. No subscriptions and free updates. A breath of fresh air.
On that note, beyond Sketch I've been over the moon about Figma and can't recommend it enough. Not sure how long Adobe CC is going to fare at this rate.
Basically every single slice of the Adobe suite is up for grabs for a company to disrupt by following Figma's innovations.
Honestly they're all so outdated and haven't followed technology, I have an extremely powerful workstation for 3D software and watching Photoshop show an hourglass cursor as I drag a brush stroke is absurd and sloppy.
Honestly they're all so outdated and haven't followed technology, I have an extremely powerful workstation for 3D software and watching Photoshop show an hourglass cursor as I drag a brush stroke is absurd and sloppy.
Do they support Linux?
Nope, and the wine support is rated as "garbage".
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...
No, no plans to support and broken in Wine.
[deleted]
The adobe apps acted like malware. Open your TaskManager(Activity Monitor on Mac) to see how much craps run on your computer when you installed Creative Cloud.
They even wrote their own “Cleaner tool”:
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-in...
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-in...
Which put them in class with such esteemed companies as McAfee and EA Games, both who also need cleaners to clean up crap after install often enough to have cleaners in their soft/malware.
I wish I knew this existed the other day, I spent about 10 minutes tracing all the crapware creative cloud had installed onto my macbook and deleted it. Some of it was using 5% cpu occationally, to do what?
Last time I needed it even their cleanup tool didn't manage to completely remove everything. We ended up reinstalling the whole machine to fix it.
as a windows user, killing adobe from autostart can't be done from task manager "start-up apps" tab. I need to go to resource manager sort entries by auto-start and look for all adobe based processes (it's more than one) and then set them to "run manually". and I'm still not sure If I have completely disabled adobe apps from running passively in background.
Task manager "start-up apps" is to blame, though, as it is restricted to only show a subset of startup locations. Use Mark Russinovich/Sysinternals Autoruns [0] as Windows has just too damn many places where the application can hook up to autostart. This advice has been true since at least "Win2000" days...
Whilst you are there, you might want to look at Process Explorer and never look back at Task manager.
[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/auto...
Whilst you are there, you might want to look at Process Explorer and never look back at Task manager.
[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/auto...
While the tool is spectacular and I use it when necessary (like the rest of Sysinternals' tools), on the other hand complaining that Task Manager is not listing all of the is like complaining that you cannot edit your cron entries or daemons on the Gnome settings app. In other words, it's by design, as a developer one should use task scheduler like cron and services like daemons: Adobe is the one to blame here for misusing task scheduler and NT services.
The GP has been complaining about Adobe services that start in Services (automatically or on trigger) - as far as I remember, none of those are visual apps, so they indeed behave like daemons. It's like complaining that Gnome Tweak Tool only shows stuff from ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/autostart instead of also showing systemd service entries from user or global lists.
Use of a persistent background tasks/helpers instead of Task Scheduler (or cron, on Unix-like world) for background updates is a pattern that is unfortunately accepted by now thanks to OS vendors doing exactly the same. "edgeupdate" et co are a great example if we are staying in the Windows world.
I don't like how many services/tasks/applications Adobe registers and starts for their CC and DC products, but it should not be a surprise that some are getting registered in other places than HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wndows\CurrentVersion\Run or the Wow6432Node version - it should be considered basic admin knowledge that there are other locations where the process may get started on log in, so it is not reliable to just look in Task Manager or Control Panel "start-up" items.
Use of a persistent background tasks/helpers instead of Task Scheduler (or cron, on Unix-like world) for background updates is a pattern that is unfortunately accepted by now thanks to OS vendors doing exactly the same. "edgeupdate" et co are a great example if we are staying in the Windows world.
I don't like how many services/tasks/applications Adobe registers and starts for their CC and DC products, but it should not be a surprise that some are getting registered in other places than HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wndows\CurrentVersion\Run or the Wow6432Node version - it should be considered basic admin knowledge that there are other locations where the process may get started on log in, so it is not reliable to just look in Task Manager or Control Panel "start-up" items.
However it's not just admins who'll be trying to keep Adobe products/services from autostarting and making it hard for those people who aren't sometimes seems like it's an Adobe goal.
thank you for suggesting these tools. Used autoruns and just disabled hidden (autorun) entries like figma agent, onedrivesetup, clicktorunsvc, postgresql-x64-12
Commenting for a bookmark in future.
Please use the 'favorite' feature in HN instead. It will then show up in the link 'favorite submissions / comments' in your profile. Alternatively browsers have a bookmark feature.
I can't find the favorite or flag feature for some reason, next to reply. I don't think browsers can bookmark this comment either, if they can't get the url of the link. It's weird because I used the favourite feature a few months back without qualms.
Not only do you have to disable them from Windows Startup and Windows Services, but you also need to go into the Windows Task Scheduler and disable the various times a day they're scheduled to auto-restart or auto-update. Disabling that nonsense makes for a much snappier machine.
Not enough, there few more in services tab
Why do Adobe need to do these things? Even database apps don't do this shenanigan, and they're legitimately need to start running when the computer turned on. Is it to stop piracy? But their apps are one of the most popular pirated apps anyway, so it's clearly not working.
Definitely noticed that every single time I open Mac Activity Viewer, right at the top there is Adobes anti-piracy tool with 10-30% usage before scuttling off down the list.
Presumably it's taking up CPU checking every single application I run so in opening Activity Viewer it's visible at the top checking it?
Presumably it's taking up CPU checking every single application I run so in opening Activity Viewer it's visible at the top checking it?
Here's a writeup on how to address that (slightly out of date but gets you most of the way there) https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/how-to-disable-bloa...
Yep.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-gc-invoker-ut...
in your launch agents...
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/adobe-gc-invoker-ut...
in your launch agents...
I was using photoshop and premiere quite heavily since DOS days, back when it fit on 3 3.5" floppies. I really hated the adobe cloud concept... I just don't like the idea of renting software instead of owning it. Then it kept getting worse as far as resources it was consuming and number of softwares that were required to install. What really ticked me off was having to pay to upgrade photoshop whenever I got a new camera because you could only get the newest "camera raw" with the most current version. So basically you end up buying an entire new version of photoshop just for an updated nikon raw codec (in my case) just to be able to import your images.
I spent a good deal of time and money in 2020 getting myself untangled from Adobe. The only thing of theirs allowed on my system now is a pdf reader and left such a bitter taste in my mouth I will actively never purchase another one of their professional products again. $300 for Black Magic's Resolve Studio is wayyyy worth it, and a better product now that I'm more proficient at it. I know many professionals in the film/video industry who have left them and won't look back. I was a hold out for too long.
The only thing that makes me particularly sad about it now is that I have no way to open my old projects, because you rent adobe - you don't own it. Well I can open things that were created prior to version 6 as I do still own 5.5 Creative Suite and can use it... If I can find a damn dvd reader.
I spent a good deal of time and money in 2020 getting myself untangled from Adobe. The only thing of theirs allowed on my system now is a pdf reader and left such a bitter taste in my mouth I will actively never purchase another one of their professional products again. $300 for Black Magic's Resolve Studio is wayyyy worth it, and a better product now that I'm more proficient at it. I know many professionals in the film/video industry who have left them and won't look back. I was a hold out for too long.
The only thing that makes me particularly sad about it now is that I have no way to open my old projects, because you rent adobe - you don't own it. Well I can open things that were created prior to version 6 as I do still own 5.5 Creative Suite and can use it... If I can find a damn dvd reader.
If you only need PDF reading, SumatraPDF is far faster than Adobe Reader.
You know what app vendor I really like?
The Omni Group.
They are pretty much the epitome of "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".
They even offer their products with a subscription - and I would consider it! They let you purchase your apps for real, they're not forcing anything, and then I think I should support their efforts.
Additionally their licensing is: buy a license, type in your code, your program works. You can use your personal license on all your machines and they trust you.
Last they allow you to save your data to "the cloud", but don't force it. And "the cloud" means you can conveniently store it on their server, or on your own or someone else's webdav server.
More people should follow their good example.
(and remember, with trust, commerce is unlimited)
The Omni Group.
They are pretty much the epitome of "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".
They even offer their products with a subscription - and I would consider it! They let you purchase your apps for real, they're not forcing anything, and then I think I should support their efforts.
Additionally their licensing is: buy a license, type in your code, your program works. You can use your personal license on all your machines and they trust you.
Last they allow you to save your data to "the cloud", but don't force it. And "the cloud" means you can conveniently store it on their server, or on your own or someone else's webdav server.
More people should follow their good example.
(and remember, with trust, commerce is unlimited)
On the other hand - their software is incredibly expensive. Let's take Omnifocus...
It's $99 for Omnifocus Pro on Mac. If you want to see your tasks on your iPhone you have to buy the iPhone version separately at $75 (they have blocked users from running Omnifocus iOS on M1 macbooks).
And even after spending over $170 (for what is effectively a gtd task manager), they still ask you to pay $5 a month to access it on the web.
And you might expect it then, to sync with the $199 you spent on their project management software (Omniplan) - but nope!
Then after you have bought the project management software, you might expect that it can export to a common format so you can share it with users that don't use OmniPlan (i.e. Microsoft Project) - but nope! That's a $199 IAP to upgrade to pro (or buy pro upfront).
And after you have bought that $400 project management suite for your Mac do you think you can view THOSE files on your iPhone without buying something extra? Think again! That will be another $99 for the standard version on iOS or $199 please if you want pro.
It's $99 for Omnifocus Pro on Mac. If you want to see your tasks on your iPhone you have to buy the iPhone version separately at $75 (they have blocked users from running Omnifocus iOS on M1 macbooks).
And even after spending over $170 (for what is effectively a gtd task manager), they still ask you to pay $5 a month to access it on the web.
And you might expect it then, to sync with the $199 you spent on their project management software (Omniplan) - but nope!
Then after you have bought the project management software, you might expect that it can export to a common format so you can share it with users that don't use OmniPlan (i.e. Microsoft Project) - but nope! That's a $199 IAP to upgrade to pro (or buy pro upfront).
And after you have bought that $400 project management suite for your Mac do you think you can view THOSE files on your iPhone without buying something extra? Think again! That will be another $99 for the standard version on iOS or $199 please if you want pro.
This feels like what software used to cost before the subscription model became ubiquitous. Their prices are certainly high, but I suspect that range is close to what a "just let me buy a perpetual license" world looks like.
They're priced right. They are unusually expensive, but they know they have a good product.
I've tried many other GTD apps, and I keep going back to OmniFocus. It works well and has been supported for years. In the meantime, many $5 apps I've tried have been abandoned or did the "our incredible journey" flip.
I've tried many other GTD apps, and I keep going back to OmniFocus. It works well and has been supported for years. In the meantime, many $5 apps I've tried have been abandoned or did the "our incredible journey" flip.
I agree on Omnifocus - it is one of the best, although when I was on OF2 and OF3 got bad reviews I made the switch to Things 3 rather than OF3 and never looked back :)
The one issue I used to have with OF2 was that sometimes I could miss something because of the context filter, which liked to hide to-do's with dependencies or that were set for the future. After moving to Things 3 on reflection I think OF tried to be a little too clever and because of that I didn't have as much confidence in the system as I now have in Things 3.
I did like that it was heavily opinionated though, including things like enforcing weekly reviews for projects.
The one issue I used to have with OF2 was that sometimes I could miss something because of the context filter, which liked to hide to-do's with dependencies or that were set for the future. After moving to Things 3 on reflection I think OF tried to be a little too clever and because of that I didn't have as much confidence in the system as I now have in Things 3.
I did like that it was heavily opinionated though, including things like enforcing weekly reviews for projects.
Why do you feel it’s expensive though? As a software engineer making 100k in the USA it is a couple of hours of work to pay. It will save you a lot more time than that. I’ve paid from my own pocket and used in all companies I worked for ...
"I'm quite rich so those prices don't seem very expensive to me"
A software developer making 100k in the USA isn’t rich I don’t think? And that’s their target market. Happy to pay for good software.
100k is filthy rich by global standards. It's definitely top 10%er territory.
I don’t know what USA tax rates are like, but assuming 40%? $100k gross ($60k net) is the top one percent worldwide:
https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=...
And the top 20% for just the USA:
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=...
And the top 20% for just the USA:
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
So a software company based in the USA, paying USA salaries for developers, targeting USA customers should price according to what ... ?
Uhh, try 0,1%.
Ín the USA, 100k already puts you in the top third of household incomes.
Ín the USA, 100k already puts you in the top third of household incomes.
Ah I meant 10% just in the US.
Of course it is.
But that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. Even if it were free, Omnifocus has zero value to 99%+ of the global population.
Why are we pretending like there's a need for hyper specialized Macbook Pro productivity software in rural Mongolia?
But that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. Even if it were free, Omnifocus has zero value to 99%+ of the global population.
Why are we pretending like there's a need for hyper specialized Macbook Pro productivity software in rural Mongolia?
It is a good salary but you need to appreciate that in many of the world's megacities - NYC, SF, LDN, SG 100k USD won't even get you a particularly good apartment to rent.
So it's all relative really. Tho yes, it's a fun thought experiment to earn 100k USD while living somewhere in rural Asia where 10$ a day lets you live super well.
So it's all relative really. Tho yes, it's a fun thought experiment to earn 100k USD while living somewhere in rural Asia where 10$ a day lets you live super well.
100k USD (for one person, non family), depending on your taxes, can get you a reasonable apartment in NYC, perhaps even a fancy place in Brooklyn (and if you're lucky, a good place in Tribeca or the Meatpackers District).
It can get you a pretty mediocre apartment in Central London but who lives there? You'll easily get a comfortable place in Zone 5 or outside for cheaper too, with a better QoL. Parking costs might have to be factored in though.
Singapore, you can literally get an apartment next to MBS in 100k USD - if you like living in a weekend ghost town. If you like to live in a more lively place, I think apart from Sentosa (which is filled with tourists anyways), places like Bukit Timah and Tanjong Pagar are comfortably within your reach. Or you can stay in Jurong where all the expats are, for much cheaper.
The only exception here is San Francisco, where 3k USD pm will get you a cardboard box inside someone else's bedroom, or possibly even bathroom. That's the Bay Area's fault for really shit planning (which, I was surprised, managed to beat London's planning by a mile - in shittiness).
It can get you a pretty mediocre apartment in Central London but who lives there? You'll easily get a comfortable place in Zone 5 or outside for cheaper too, with a better QoL. Parking costs might have to be factored in though.
Singapore, you can literally get an apartment next to MBS in 100k USD - if you like living in a weekend ghost town. If you like to live in a more lively place, I think apart from Sentosa (which is filled with tourists anyways), places like Bukit Timah and Tanjong Pagar are comfortably within your reach. Or you can stay in Jurong where all the expats are, for much cheaper.
The only exception here is San Francisco, where 3k USD pm will get you a cardboard box inside someone else's bedroom, or possibly even bathroom. That's the Bay Area's fault for really shit planning (which, I was surprised, managed to beat London's planning by a mile - in shittiness).
It's amusing for me that you instantly disqualified the idea of living within Central London. It definitely depends on stage of life but being able to walk to work or walk home late at night in Summer is a seriously underrated QoL feature IMO. Tho ofc you don't get outdoor space.
I lived in Central London right until last year. Definitely depends on stage of life, but it's not like London is unlivable for someone making 100k pa.
Also if I wanted to walk to and from work, now I'd rather get a hotel or ABNB and commute like that for a while. It seriously gets old.
Also if I wanted to walk to and from work, now I'd rather get a hotel or ABNB and commute like that for a while. It seriously gets old.
100k usd ~ 70k gbp
Sure it's not unliveable but the original parent was making out like 100k would let you be rich - my point was in the megacities you're not even close.
Also fwiw I've lived 4 years of my life inside zone 1. I think the main downside is air pollution and outdoor space, although you can find garden flats dotted around
Sure it's not unliveable but the original parent was making out like 100k would let you be rich - my point was in the megacities you're not even close.
Also fwiw I've lived 4 years of my life inside zone 1. I think the main downside is air pollution and outdoor space, although you can find garden flats dotted around
Sure, but Omni's market is western people with money.
Incredibly expensive compared to what?
These are specialized tools, and the cost of organizing the engineering of these tools is easily running into the millions.
These costs need to be recouped.
These are specialized tools, and the cost of organizing the engineering of these tools is easily running into the millions.
These costs need to be recouped.
Compared to the competition.
Buying Things 3 for iPad ($9.99), iPhone ($19.99) and Mac ($49.99) is half the price of OmniFocus. I actually migrated from Omnifocus 2 to Things 3 and personally think its the better app, but I get that some people might like the bells and whistles.
OmniGraffle is $249.99 USD compared to Sketch at $99. The subscription model cost is roughly the same as Figma (although figma also has a free-forever tier).
Omni Outliner is probably closest compared to OneNote which comes included with any Office 365 plan above $4.00 per month.
OmniPlan is cheaper than Microsoft Project to be fair, although Project for Web is catching up at $10 per month and there are alternatives like QuickPlan at $50.
Full disclosure: Of all these apps, I do REALLY would want to use OmniPlan. It's definitely the best Gantt chart software for Mac but it's useless for me without MSP support, my work aren't going to pay $400, and QuickPlan is $50 and supports Microsoft Project, so I'm not forking out an extra $350 from my own pocket to use it.
Buying Things 3 for iPad ($9.99), iPhone ($19.99) and Mac ($49.99) is half the price of OmniFocus. I actually migrated from Omnifocus 2 to Things 3 and personally think its the better app, but I get that some people might like the bells and whistles.
OmniGraffle is $249.99 USD compared to Sketch at $99. The subscription model cost is roughly the same as Figma (although figma also has a free-forever tier).
Omni Outliner is probably closest compared to OneNote which comes included with any Office 365 plan above $4.00 per month.
OmniPlan is cheaper than Microsoft Project to be fair, although Project for Web is catching up at $10 per month and there are alternatives like QuickPlan at $50.
Full disclosure: Of all these apps, I do REALLY would want to use OmniPlan. It's definitely the best Gantt chart software for Mac but it's useless for me without MSP support, my work aren't going to pay $400, and QuickPlan is $50 and supports Microsoft Project, so I'm not forking out an extra $350 from my own pocket to use it.
That's expected, as it's not a mass-market product, and the niche is small and cluttered with free alternatives.
The amount of people that would buy a 40-50$ app is about the same the buys the 100$ apps now. And turning their apps into 5$-a-piece software is an incredible risk, as it alienates part of their current customer, and the increase in sales might not be enough to offset the lowered per-sale profit. Their position as luxury software is a safe bet.
The amount of people that would buy a 40-50$ app is about the same the buys the 100$ apps now. And turning their apps into 5$-a-piece software is an incredible risk, as it alienates part of their current customer, and the increase in sales might not be enough to offset the lowered per-sale profit. Their position as luxury software is a safe bet.
My only issue with those prices is how hard it is to figure out what your total outlay will be upfront. If you just hear good things about the iOS app and think '$75 seems high, but ok', you'll be very frustrated later when you realize the companion app prices.
Their prices on OF are kinda throwback-y, but the pricing for OmniPlan is probably VERY influenced by how expensive MSP is, or traditionally was.
It's topic drift, but MS Project has done to the critical-path scheduling world what IE did to the browser world. It's worse than the incumbents in lots of material ways, but it's a LOT cheaper and much easier to learn, and so it's sucked up all the oxygen.
I work in enterprise project management / earned value. It USED to be that there were lots of contenders for critical path project management software. Now the last non-MSP product standing is Primavera, and it's somewhat neglected by its new corporate master -- the original owner sold his company to Oracle years ago and Oracle hasn't really done much with it.
So the world at large is, increasingly, stuck with MSP if they want this sort of creature. And MSP, instead of using their position to encourage good practices, or adopt widely-supported features still unaccountably lacking from the product, has instead introduced "features" like Manual Tasks.
What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task.
A "Manual Task" just ignores all that. If this doesn't make immediate sense to you as a horrible idea, let me explain it by way of example. Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math!
It's topic drift, but MS Project has done to the critical-path scheduling world what IE did to the browser world. It's worse than the incumbents in lots of material ways, but it's a LOT cheaper and much easier to learn, and so it's sucked up all the oxygen.
I work in enterprise project management / earned value. It USED to be that there were lots of contenders for critical path project management software. Now the last non-MSP product standing is Primavera, and it's somewhat neglected by its new corporate master -- the original owner sold his company to Oracle years ago and Oracle hasn't really done much with it.
So the world at large is, increasingly, stuck with MSP if they want this sort of creature. And MSP, instead of using their position to encourage good practices, or adopt widely-supported features still unaccountably lacking from the product, has instead introduced "features" like Manual Tasks.
What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task.
A "Manual Task" just ignores all that. If this doesn't make immediate sense to you as a horrible idea, let me explain it by way of example. Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math!
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded.
It certainly can be abused, but at the level you have described it, it seems a straightforward way of modeling things outside of the scheduling control of the project.
(Now, if it's allowed to have other tasks as dependencies, and doesn't basically raise a giant red flag if the calculated time of those dependencies pushes past the begin or end of the Manual Task, depending on the kind of dependency, that's a problem with the implementation, but at the level you have described it the concept isn't misplaced.)
On one level, needing to use it is a management smell that control may not have been assigned over all things it should be to effectively manage a project, but that's very much a reality.
> Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic.
You mean, if excel let you directly enter a value in a cell, even if headings suggest it's a calculation? I'm pretty sure it's has that feature from say one.
It certainly can be abused, but at the level you have described it, it seems a straightforward way of modeling things outside of the scheduling control of the project.
(Now, if it's allowed to have other tasks as dependencies, and doesn't basically raise a giant red flag if the calculated time of those dependencies pushes past the begin or end of the Manual Task, depending on the kind of dependency, that's a problem with the implementation, but at the level you have described it the concept isn't misplaced.)
On one level, needing to use it is a management smell that control may not have been assigned over all things it should be to effectively manage a project, but that's very much a reality.
> Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic.
You mean, if excel let you directly enter a value in a cell, even if headings suggest it's a calculation? I'm pretty sure it's has that feature from say one.
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded. A scheduling tool like this is, at a basic level, all about assembling a list of tasks with durations (and, ideally, assigned resources and work and costs) that are connected by a chain of logic. If an early task is delayed 3 weeks, you'll see that in later tasks that depend on the first task. [...] A "Manual Task" just ignores all that.
That's assuming that all your tasks are movable. If there is a task that can only be completed in a certain time period (and there are some activities that you cannot or will not move in any organisation), you plan around it. It will not move just based on your whims or your schedule.
And yes, it can mean that your auto-schedule makes no sense if something gets delayed and the task causes your critical path scheduling not to make sense any more, but that is the price you pay in the real world.
It's a weird hill to die on.
> Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math!
Imagine if someone was able to type in a flat, straight up not calculated number in a calculation spreadsheet, overriding any formula that you have put in. The world would end.
That's assuming that all your tasks are movable. If there is a task that can only be completed in a certain time period (and there are some activities that you cannot or will not move in any organisation), you plan around it. It will not move just based on your whims or your schedule.
And yes, it can mean that your auto-schedule makes no sense if something gets delayed and the task causes your critical path scheduling not to make sense any more, but that is the price you pay in the real world.
It's a weird hill to die on.
> Imagine Excel introduces a feature called Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic. If you want the total to say 10,000 but the column has entries that sum to 12,234, just turn on Manual Math!
Imagine if someone was able to type in a flat, straight up not calculated number in a calculation spreadsheet, overriding any formula that you have put in. The world would end.
You're thinking of this the wrong way (and, not to put too fine a point on it, NOT in the way project management professionals do).
A critical path project has a chain of tasks. Task A must complete before B which must complete before C, and so forth.
If A is delayed, but you've turned off the critical path engine by making C a "manual task", then C's forecast dates *WILL NOT REFLECT* the anticipated move to the right as a result of A's delay. This is a HUGE problem.
You rely on forecast dates being live, and showing true projections of reality (or as true as possible). You can even seat deadlines, and generate alerts if a task isn't going to meet one. But if you nail something down because it quote-unquote can't slip, you're preventing the software from telling you when a slip is coming.
That is very, very, very dumb.
It's also entirely predictable that someone on HN would try to tell me it isn't.
And yes, you can put literal numbers in spreadsheets. But bad things DO happen when people represent values as sums (or as otherwise calculated based on other values) when they are in fact not. That's what "manual tasks" are.
A critical path project has a chain of tasks. Task A must complete before B which must complete before C, and so forth.
If A is delayed, but you've turned off the critical path engine by making C a "manual task", then C's forecast dates *WILL NOT REFLECT* the anticipated move to the right as a result of A's delay. This is a HUGE problem.
You rely on forecast dates being live, and showing true projections of reality (or as true as possible). You can even seat deadlines, and generate alerts if a task isn't going to meet one. But if you nail something down because it quote-unquote can't slip, you're preventing the software from telling you when a slip is coming.
That is very, very, very dumb.
It's also entirely predictable that someone on HN would try to tell me it isn't.
And yes, you can put literal numbers in spreadsheets. But bad things DO happen when people represent values as sums (or as otherwise calculated based on other values) when they are in fact not. That's what "manual tasks" are.
> What's a Manual Task? It's a task in a schedule that has its dates hardcoded and thus will not move, which is really insanely wrongheaded.
It sounds like a Manual Task is simply a way to acknowledge that your project has a dependency on something in the outside world that is beyond your control, and that seems like a useful feature. Why are you so vehemently opposed to having that capability?
It sounds like a Manual Task is simply a way to acknowledge that your project has a dependency on something in the outside world that is beyond your control, and that seems like a useful feature. Why are you so vehemently opposed to having that capability?
See my other comment, supra.
There are other constructs that exist in the project management world to model what you refer to. A "manual task" that appears to be part of the critical path, but is in fact NOT, is a time bomb waiting to go off, because its failure to show real forecast information will absolutely lead the schedulers to think all is well when it's not.
IOW, trust me when I tell you this is a bad idea not grounded in anything like project management best practices.
There are other constructs that exist in the project management world to model what you refer to. A "manual task" that appears to be part of the critical path, but is in fact NOT, is a time bomb waiting to go off, because its failure to show real forecast information will absolutely lead the schedulers to think all is well when it's not.
IOW, trust me when I tell you this is a bad idea not grounded in anything like project management best practices.
Ok, so you're just explaining this badly. The problem is not that "manual tasks" exist, but that they can be created with (false) dependencies on other tasks that have flexible scheduling. The way you originally explained Manual Tasks naturally leads to a perfectly valid use case, but apparently MS Project also allows for an invalid usage of that feature.
I'm really not. You're just doing that very-very-HN thing where you assume your surface understanding is sufficient.
Manual tasks in MSP are a very bad idea. There is no valid use case for them in critical path scheduling. They exist because some muzzy-headed marketer at Microsoft decided to insert them into the backlog, near as I can tell, despite the cries of actual professionals who use the tool.
There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, as I said, tantamount to turning off "math" because you don't like what it shows you.
Manual tasks in MSP are a very bad idea. There is no valid use case for them in critical path scheduling. They exist because some muzzy-headed marketer at Microsoft decided to insert them into the backlog, near as I can tell, despite the cries of actual professionals who use the tool.
There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, as I said, tantamount to turning off "math" because you don't like what it shows you.
I'm finding it really odd how you are still insisting so vehemently that it's a horrible misfeature, and yet you haven't described what you consider the proper way to represent immovable parts of the schedule, and have barely even acknowledged the need for such a thing. Please, tone down the ranting and try to explain this stuff in a useful way.
> There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, [...]
Can you finish that paragraph in an informative manner?
This is Microsoft that we're talking about, so I don't doubt that they could put in a feature that is as horribly misguided as you claim; I've encountered a few myself. But you've really just been repeating your original assertion without justifying it, and that's unhelpful. Getting haughty about it is even less helpful.
> There are ample ways to model constrained tasks in a critical path that do not involve a feature that is, [...]
Can you finish that paragraph in an informative manner?
This is Microsoft that we're talking about, so I don't doubt that they could put in a feature that is as horribly misguided as you claim; I've encountered a few myself. But you've really just been repeating your original assertion without justifying it, and that's unhelpful. Getting haughty about it is even less helpful.
I, in turn, am finding it hilariously predictable that you’re pushing back so hard on something you don’t understand.
It’s not really my job to teach you how to use constraints and deadlines.
It’s not really my job to teach you how to use constraints and deadlines.
> Manual Math that allows you to override the rules of arithmetic
Although finance types would be interested. (and OO programmers)
Although finance types would be interested. (and OO programmers)
Not to mention the really short support lifecycles. I bought OmniGraffle for iPad for the not insignificant £35 - used a few times - about a year later, on the very next iOS version - it stopped working completely, and the only response they gave to people was "Sucks to be you, buy Omnigraffle 2".
I won't touch Omni for anything now.
I won't touch Omni for anything now.
It just sounds like there is a small group of people who are very happy to pay eye-watering amounts of money for (what sounds like at least) really well-crafted productivity software. Good on them for showing there is a market for it
I'm sorry, but your point is completely lost on me.
I literally run my life on omnifocus. I have done so since it came out around 2007. My data is private and on my webdav server.
The software has been: useful and pleasant to use.
(well, except that OF1 was better than OF2 and compounded with ios 7 the transition sucked)
(also, this is in a thread regarding Adobe!)
I literally run my life on omnifocus. I have done so since it came out around 2007. My data is private and on my webdav server.
The software has been: useful and pleasant to use.
(well, except that OF1 was better than OF2 and compounded with ios 7 the transition sucked)
(also, this is in a thread regarding Adobe!)
A hundred dollars, that's on the order of one hour of development time. I have never seen those apps and have no idea of how much effort went into them, I don't know how many customers they have, but you probably have to sell a bunch of licenses to cover the development cost and all other costs that went into making those apps.
Before moving to the subscription model, Adobe’s stuff was all in the low hundreds of dollars range too. With a pretty robust set of student discounts, and not a ton of work done to stop people pirating it.
I have tried so many task managers, I have always wanted to try the Omni apps but I am firmly in with windows world and have never found an application or company that seems to compare to the omni group.
Did you try Todoist? That's pretty good.
I'm an ex-omnifocus user. Omnifocus has lots of bells that make you feel productive, but ultimately I now use Things 3 as it is better designed and also gives me more confidence that things don't get missed (i.e. things can get hidden in a perspective in omnifocus if you aren't careful).
I suspect this is why Omnifocus's latest apps are actually reviewed quite poorly on iOS - 3.8/5 compared to Things 3 at 4.8/5
I'm an ex-omnifocus user. Omnifocus has lots of bells that make you feel productive, but ultimately I now use Things 3 as it is better designed and also gives me more confidence that things don't get missed (i.e. things can get hidden in a perspective in omnifocus if you aren't careful).
I suspect this is why Omnifocus's latest apps are actually reviewed quite poorly on iOS - 3.8/5 compared to Things 3 at 4.8/5
Jesus, at these prices anything less than perfect is unacceptable.
So just like Apple innit?
I'd also add to Omni Group that Panic are a company that follows similar principles, to their benefit.
Hello ad.
Also, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22745001
Also, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22745001
I'm uncertain if that's what you're implying, but I don't have any affiliation with them.
EDIT: actually, thinking back I did get a discount on their product, LOL. I got onto omnifocus beta free before it came out. When OF 1 came out I got a discount on it. After that I paid for it myself.
But APART from the free 1/2 product I received I have no affiliation with omnigroup. :)
EDIT: actually, thinking back I did get a discount on their product, LOL. I got onto omnifocus beta free before it came out. When OF 1 came out I got a discount on it. After that I paid for it myself.
But APART from the free 1/2 product I received I have no affiliation with omnigroup. :)
Hallucinaut(5)
I've always associated efficiency of a program by its package size and with this mindset, Adobe Suite would be on the bottom of my list as being the most inefficient set of programs in modern times (proof: https://imgur.com/a/G1nJn7H). I mean come on, 7.53GB for Adobe Acrobat? Then they tell you that your install base is bloated and you can save space by uninstalling/reinstalling it. As of recently, I find myself using Figma more and more becuase I don't want to wait for the counter Adobe program to load. SMH! I hope someone from Adobe is reading.
FYI, WinAmp v2.8 is not #1 but high on the same list for being a butt kicker for its package size!
FYI, WinAmp v2.8 is not #1 but high on the same list for being a butt kicker for its package size!
They've really upped their malware game recently. Even if unintentional, this sort of dark pattern shows incompetence, otherwise it's malfeasance. Happily the response as a consumer is the same.
Average consumers don't care. But some PM can say they've "increased engagement and daily active users"
A while back I needed to do a project on an adobe product, I signed up and installed. After completing the project I uninstalled the software, some how I miss read that what I signed up for was an annual subscription of $11 per month. And when I stopped my subscription they charged me for the full year’s remaining fees.
I was shocked, it left a very bitter taste of bad practice on their part in my opinion. I have since switched to only work with Affinity products, and I cannot be more happy with the quality of the Affinity suite of products.
As a developer who has to deal with odd here and there graphic problems, Affinity products with a great once-off price model makes so much more sense.
I was shocked, it left a very bitter taste of bad practice on their part in my opinion. I have since switched to only work with Affinity products, and I cannot be more happy with the quality of the Affinity suite of products.
As a developer who has to deal with odd here and there graphic problems, Affinity products with a great once-off price model makes so much more sense.
This is my experience. We had a freelancer for a few months who needed Photoshop, didn't realise we were signing up for a year.
They advertise it as a monthly subscription, but it's actually a monthly payment plan for a yearly subscription.
When I told them this was unacceptable, not what was advertised, and demanded a refund, they tried to bribe me by saying if I stopped pursuing a refund for the company they would give me a free year on my personal Adobe account. Explaining to them that I have no need for Adobe products myself, and that this bribery was really dodgy and making me think even less of of Adobe, was a tough process. They couldn't understand.
They advertise it as a monthly subscription, but it's actually a monthly payment plan for a yearly subscription.
When I told them this was unacceptable, not what was advertised, and demanded a refund, they tried to bribe me by saying if I stopped pursuing a refund for the company they would give me a free year on my personal Adobe account. Explaining to them that I have no need for Adobe products myself, and that this bribery was really dodgy and making me think even less of of Adobe, was a tough process. They couldn't understand.
And here I was thinking how did I miss this on the signup process. Incredibly concerning that their marketing seems to deliberately apply this practise.
On the Photoshop marketing page it's advertised as a monthly fee (no *, no †, no footnote). Not even a "from $X", it just says the price.
Clicking "Buy now" takes you to the product selection page. On this page each plan has the exact price. It's the same as the price on the previous page. No footnotes, asterisks, or anything else. There is an asterisk next to the free month of stock photo access, which implies that they do use footnotes where necessary. Again the price is not "from $X", it's just $X.
Click "Buy Now" and you're in the checkout flow. The call-to-action is entering your email address. The summary shows the total as being the exact price. No footnotes, no asterisks, no fine print. However, the price is only now listed as not a per-month price (as it has been on the previous 2 pages), but as an annual price paid monthly. You can change this to monthly price, but it's 50% more expensive, proving that the "$X per month" advertisement is incorrect.
In the UK I think this would probably be classed as false advertising, and I think any refund complaint would be upheld in court or by the trading standards authority, which is probably why they gave me a refund when I pushed them.
Clicking "Buy now" takes you to the product selection page. On this page each plan has the exact price. It's the same as the price on the previous page. No footnotes, asterisks, or anything else. There is an asterisk next to the free month of stock photo access, which implies that they do use footnotes where necessary. Again the price is not "from $X", it's just $X.
Click "Buy Now" and you're in the checkout flow. The call-to-action is entering your email address. The summary shows the total as being the exact price. No footnotes, no asterisks, no fine print. However, the price is only now listed as not a per-month price (as it has been on the previous 2 pages), but as an annual price paid monthly. You can change this to monthly price, but it's 50% more expensive, proving that the "$X per month" advertisement is incorrect.
In the UK I think this would probably be classed as false advertising, and I think any refund complaint would be upheld in court or by the trading standards authority, which is probably why they gave me a refund when I pushed them.
Affinity's stuff looks nice. Oh how I wish they'd release a Lightroom replacement.
Is that not what their Photo app is? I guess it seems a bit more photoshop-flavored, but it looks like it has various lightroom-like features.
There's darktable, and it's getting very good (albeit quite complicated).
Luckily when I needed to install Acrobat Pro for a month I suspected Adobe was running such a scam so I used a Privacy credit card. After I finished with their product I paused the card and sent customer support an email asking to cancel (since the online cancel form wasn’t working for some reason.) I watched as Adobe attempted to charge my card several times over the next few days. Luckily Privacy declined all those charges since the card was paused.
The only other company I’ve had such an experience with has been Stamps.com.
The only other company I’ve had such an experience with has been Stamps.com.
Chargeback time.
This. Since I started using my credit card more for purchases, I’ve used the power of chargeback on a few occasions and it’s wonderful. It puts the burden on the vendor to fight it, and 90%
of the time they either don’t or the CC sides with you.
As an OSX User i have 32 (!) rules in my LULU Firewall preventing Adobe to call home, which says a lot
When I still was cc subscriber I blocked a lot of its telemetry but apparently their developers are unfamiliar with a concept of using exponential backoff for retries so it was just spamming requests every second.
If you block their incoming syn-ack packets instead, their apps start a denial of service attack on their own servers!
I agree that Adobe is crooked for not allowing people to uninstall their software...
But, why would you give a new employee a computer without imaging it first? I'd much rather spend the time imaging a new computer then try and clean off all the junk the old employee left.
But, why would you give a new employee a computer without imaging it first? I'd much rather spend the time imaging a new computer then try and clean off all the junk the old employee left.
I highly recommend Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher - they have 90 days trial and you can buy them 50% off[1] - one time payment, you can install it on more than one computer.
1 - https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/supporting-the-creative-com...
1 - https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/supporting-the-creative-com...
They really offer an incredible line of powerful products. Been a happy Affinity customer for the past +2 years and really have no complaints, although I'm probably a light user.
I uninstalled Creative Cloud from my PC last week and my oh my, did it feel like I was transported back to e.g. 2007.
I emotionally recoil from businesses whose only remaining competition moat is "we make it hard to get rid of our stuff"
I emotionally recoil from businesses whose only remaining competition moat is "we make it hard to get rid of our stuff"
Also, you also cannot install old Adobe apps anymore. I have a full version of Illustrator CS2 that I paid about 500€ for, but cannot install it because it needs to be activated and Adobe shut their licensing servers down.
For a while they used to give away a license-less version of those CS2 products, try searching maybe you can still get them.
Yes, I already did some research and found it.
The software can be downloaded here:
The software can be downloaded here:
https://www.chip.de/downloads/Adobe-Illustrator-CS2-Vollversion_59763474.html
https://archive.fo/255q5
It's also available for download in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Adobe-CS2
Lots of good old software available in the Internet Archive these days. In general, I would search Internet Archive first if I need any old software instead of downloading from random sketchy sources like random torrent trackers.
Lots of good old software available in the Internet Archive these days. In general, I would search Internet Archive first if I need any old software instead of downloading from random sketchy sources like random torrent trackers.
officially they do want you to use it, that's what the special version was for, unofficially ? just buy a new one while upgrading you Desktop on the way
I've heard they give away license-less versions on piratebay.
You should report is to your country customer protection agency, perhaps they can help you.
> but cannot install it because it needs to be activated and Adobe shut their licensing servers down.
It should be made a legal requirement for software vendors to hand over the source code and build environment for both the software and the licensing servers in virtual machines to be held in trust at the national libraries / archives, and I can imagine a similar thing also for chip designs.
We have this requirement for books already for ages (in Germany since 1663 / 1871, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pflichtexemplar - in the US I didn't find out when it was introduced, see https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html).
Release to the public domain should be mandatory after 30 years.
It should be made a legal requirement for software vendors to hand over the source code and build environment for both the software and the licensing servers in virtual machines to be held in trust at the national libraries / archives, and I can imagine a similar thing also for chip designs.
We have this requirement for books already for ages (in Germany since 1663 / 1871, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pflichtexemplar - in the US I didn't find out when it was introduced, see https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html).
Release to the public domain should be mandatory after 30 years.
This was actually quite an issue when my father-in-law died and his wife wanted to continue to use the computer. It was only because I have an Adobe ID of my own that I was able to resolve it by temporarily licensing it under my subscription....
The OS shoulders some of this blame. Apps like Adobe’s should not be able to exist using ransomware patterns. If I want the app to uninstall, nuke it Windows.
It's lost some of what it used to be, but I do still like Apple's UX of apps being one "thing" that you can drag to your trash.
Obviously there's preferences and caches and stuff, but generally even if there are background processes etc those are still in that app package and reclaiming most resources is still this simple.
The Windows uninstall process seems archaic whenever I go back to it.
Obviously there's preferences and caches and stuff, but generally even if there are background processes etc those are still in that app package and reclaiming most resources is still this simple.
The Windows uninstall process seems archaic whenever I go back to it.
Not for Adobe, there’s a good half dozen processes related to licensing the stuff that are running on my machine at all times, installed by an Installer package that required admin access.
Maybe I’m just getting old but I can’t believe how inefficient everything I used to love when I was younger has become recently. Adobe used to be the gold standard of quality software. I feel like eventually (i.e. the switch to creative cloud) they must have realized they didn’t want to focus on improving their products anymore and just switched to milking their customers. I’m afraid they are on the downslope now.
They've very much gone the way of Oracle: focus on squeezing every last cent out of what you've got now and screw the future. That attitude almost tanked Microsoft, but Nadela seems to have pulled them back from Balmer's bad habits somewhat.
As Richard Stallman puts it "either the user controls the program or the program controls the user."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM
Adobe has this weird attitude to assume they own computers of users. Blocking possibility of unistalling is just one example. Another is that it downloads new version of apps theought CC and does not remove old one. It also gets a lots of memory and storage for no particular reason.
But it is not only CC. I am asked once per some weeks if I want to remove Flash. I didn't ask about showing these spammy popups. But Adobe knows better. The pop-up has two options: uninstall or remind later...
And if I don't want to uninstall Flash? It seems it is not my decision what software is installed on my computer according to Adobe.
But it is not only CC. I am asked once per some weeks if I want to remove Flash. I didn't ask about showing these spammy popups. But Adobe knows better. The pop-up has two options: uninstall or remind later...
And if I don't want to uninstall Flash? It seems it is not my decision what software is installed on my computer according to Adobe.
>Another is that it downloads new version of apps theought CC and does not remove old one
Oh this is actually just because they know full well their software can't be trusted to be backwards compatible with plugins and ecosystem of older versions. Even though they switched to subscription payment their feature releases are still basically the same as yearly boxed releases with the same lack of considerations for backwards compatibility that entails.
Oh this is actually just because they know full well their software can't be trusted to be backwards compatible with plugins and ecosystem of older versions. Even though they switched to subscription payment their feature releases are still basically the same as yearly boxed releases with the same lack of considerations for backwards compatibility that entails.
I think I would like to use Photoshop. But Creative Cloud stops me, once upon a time I was needed to delete Adobe apps from PC and it was a nightmare. Nowadays you can't install Adobe apps without Creative Cloud.
Gimp is a free solution, but unfortunately is very weak in terms of functionalities and interface compared to Photoshop.
I have been using Affinity Photo for a few years, and I have to say it is a very solid alternative to Photoshop. It only costs 50$ (pay once, no subscription, free updates ; also there is a promotion of 25$ currently). You get all the advanced features that photoshop can offer, like non destructive layers, smart inpainting, RAW development, smart brushes, export layers, and so on.
Affinity photo is compatible with their other softwares like Affinity Designer (alternative to Illustrator) and Affinity Publisher (alternative to InDesign).
I have been using Affinity Photo for a few years, and I have to say it is a very solid alternative to Photoshop. It only costs 50$ (pay once, no subscription, free updates ; also there is a promotion of 25$ currently). You get all the advanced features that photoshop can offer, like non destructive layers, smart inpainting, RAW development, smart brushes, export layers, and so on.
Affinity photo is compatible with their other softwares like Affinity Designer (alternative to Illustrator) and Affinity Publisher (alternative to InDesign).
Have you tried GIMP? Haven't used Photoshop in ages, but GIMP can open PSD files, so hopefully it's close enough to functionality to replace Photoshop.
https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
Have you tried Photopea? Photopea can also open PSD files, and it runs entirely in a browser so it's suitable for using on a Chromebook.
https://www.photopea.com/
https://www.photopea.com/
GIMP is a useable FOSS alternative but sucks when compared to Photoshop if you're using it professionally
with all the updates gimp has been churning out lately, do you know if anyone has done a feature comparison of how far exactly is gimp from photoshop?
time or features
https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/12/25/gimp-2-99-4-released/
https://www.gimp.org/news/2020/12/25/gimp-2-99-4-released/
The biggest thing missing is non destructive editing (eg adjustment layers). It's coming in GIMP 3.2 sometime in the future.
So theoretically in the next 2 years or whatever, this big feature and many smaller ones will come to gimp. Still how long before mass adoption would start because as you mentioned the biggest hurdle?
Krita has been a good PS replacement for me.
This is an OS (Windows) problem. It allows the software to behave that way. Windows Store version of the software will fix those problems - single uninstall button in the store and you are done.
Bad form by Adobe, certainly, but all the anti-subscription hate is unreasonable. For professional creative work, CC is well worth the money.
You even have to detach the Internet cable to install Windows without a Microsoft account nowadays. I hope all this online account abomination is just a temporary fad.
That is only applicable to the Home version. Pro and above still lets you create an offline account during setup. That said I find it disgusting you have to disable your internet connection on the Home version to create an offline account.
There are rumors they even are going to remove support for offline password-based log-in to always require you to unlock your PC with your phone and an on-line account.
I think these kind of practices get regulated. There is absolutely no need for apps like Photoshop to be constantly online and spy on users. I think it should be illegal for the application to stay online if there is no legitimate need for it, I also hope that GDPR legislation will be extended to apps, as it seems they can just pull as much personal data as they like without any user control.
That is an interesting take. Can law regulate which apps remain in the background, how many executables they install, how much data they are allowed to leave behind? Is this really desirable? The law would have to differentiate servers from desktops, for starters.
Well, that's something to debate, but I am sure this is getting out of hand. Now every application has some sort of Application Manager that requires computer to be online in order to enable access to the app (some require to be online once a week etc.) and these managers send who knows what to their servers. I think for starters it should be illegal to require user to install such managers in order to have access to their app or at very least give an option for offline authorisation. There is no reason for such apps to exist other than to spy on users.
GDPR technically does apply to apps, and in fact already covers what you're saying. The principle of "data minimisation" (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...) means you should only collect the minimum amount of data required for a particular purpose, so in theory an app shouldn't be able to spy on you and call home all the time for the purposes of software licensing when something much less intrusive can suffice. Similarly, there is no valid reason why you should be forced to sign into an account to uninstall a piece of software.
In reality though, the GDPR is not being enforced seriously and the same organization linked above who is writing those guidelines is completely incompetent at actually enforcing them.
In reality though, the GDPR is not being enforced seriously and the same organization linked above who is writing those guidelines is completely incompetent at actually enforcing them.
You see I would be happy to make GDPR complaint about some apps, but I don't want to lose access to them. I am sure if I started something like this, they would just remove access and some of those apps don't have alternatives.
unfortunately last I looked at the california CCPA, it only applied to companies with greater $25m in revenue AND at least half of the revenue was advertising.
Don't know what the updated CCPA will change in 2 years.
Don't know what the updated CCPA will change in 2 years.
no terminal command to do this?
(2018)
Just off the top of my head right now on osx: can't shut down creative cloud app from the app bar, can't shut down webex, docker desktop regularly hijacks everything I'm doing (once when having a presentation in front of 100 people) to show there's an update, steam client jumping in the tray for hours unless I acknowledge there's an update, apps registering to be started on boot by themselves and having to go through a convoluted process to turn it off (if it even exists)...