If you’re anything like me, you have a strong dislike for all the stupidity that surrounds the Adobe Reader (formerly known as Acrobat Reader.)
I won’t go into the details here (though this guy can explain it in great detail), but because I very occasionally need features of Adobe Reader, I still keep it installed on my Mac, while I use Preview for all my other PDF needs. I’ve gone so far as to install the Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac for when I use Firefox, just to avoid Adobe Reader. And, really, there’s no point in Adobe Reader for most cases where you just want to be able to view or print PDF files. Doubly so, since Mac OS X lets you print any document to a PDF file as a default feature of the OS.
There are, though, edge cases where having Adobe Reader installed and available are useful. So I have it installed, but I refuse to use their web plugin. Adobe doesn’t care, though, and will periodically, sometimes randomly, and sometimes even without my consent, re-install the plugin. Even though I’ve told it not to. Adobe Updater, I’m looking at you, here.
Sadly, my solution is heavy-handed. I created a launchd task that will forcibly remove the Adobe Reader plugin from /Library/Internet Plugins whenever it’s created. It’s fast, efficient, and works.
And, as soon as I can figure out the new wordpress theme, I’ll post it here in a legible form
UPDATE: Thanks to Lynne and Chad on Twitter for suggesting the Preserve Code Formatting plugin!
And now, the Launchd config. Save this as:
"/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.unnerving.RemoveAdobeReaderPlugin.plist"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>org.unnering.RemoveAdobeReaderPlugin</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>rm</string>
<string>-rf</string>
<string>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin</string>
</array>
<key>QueueDirectories</key>
<array>
<string>/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin</string>
</array>
<key>WatchPaths</key>
<array/>
</dict>
</plist>
