Adobe’s Invasive Software

I just removed the following LaunchAgents & Daemons from my Snow Leopard:

  • /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
  • /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist
  • /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

Best to move to some other directory, just in case you need them later for some reason. Photoshop works fine.

So the point is, why can’t Adobe just ask on install:

  • Do you want automatic updates enabled?
  • Do you want an application to bridge Adobe AIR and CS products running all the time?

No, I don’t. When I want to update, I press a button. Every service running on the machine is added security risk and it consumes resources.