[Action] Filing Formal Complaint on Installation of McAfee, Who's With Me?

[FeliTec]

As mentioned by many users before, I made a detailed list on what is being seen on my side, this is how the installation journey is currently designed besides delivering the Acrobat Reader DC:

1. Landing

• Adobe’s website provides transportation to deceive user that the installer only provides the installation of Adobe Reader

2. Post Download

• no explicit terms to notify user before installation
• no any clear options to let user uncheck McAfee installation

3. Installation

• my installation of the Acrobat Reader was being abandoned due to having Acrobat Pro DC being installed whereas the installer still proceeds to instell McAfee
• clicking "Yes" when confirming cancellation does not stop the installation process

4. Post-Installation

• McAfee performs auto scan after installation, meaning unauthorized access to ALL user’s machine files, possibly riding on the permission granted at the beginning of instellation.
• McAfee change operation system settings without ANY user permission, possibly riding on the permission granted at the beginning of instellation.
• McAfee is tricky to delete.

I have all the screenshots avaliable in attachment

After reading related posts being ignored since 2012, with 4 similar suggestion being filed in uservoice ideabox since 2021, no **** is being given, I have been a loyal user / customer for almost 10 years, after seeing this, enough is enough, lets raise our voice to MAKE THEM LISTEN.

Action 1: Like, comment, share this post

We need more attention from the community and group everyone together to make bigger voice, your likes, comments and shares on this post (refer users with similar concerns to this post) will bring wider concern within the community.

Action 2: Comment, upvote the idea and mark as critical

Idea link here: [Click here to direct]

Their team usually addresses issues with most number of concern in priority, upvote and mark as critical will help them notice the complaint and handle in timely manner.

Action 3: Upvote all similar ideas, or even raise your own complaint in different channal

More complaint = higher priority to handle, you know the trick.

[try67]

While I agree with the general sentiment, some of your claims are incorrect. See this thread for a more in-depth analysis of the situation: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/mcafee-installed-without-permission-or-any...

To summarize, Adobe most likely uses cookies to keep track of your selections on the download page. If you (or someone else on your computer) once selected to download these add-ons it assumes you still want to do so, and will download them again, without asking you to select it once more. Now, I don't think that's a good way of doing things, but it's not the same as forcing these add-ons on all users (as you claim), which is indeed illegal in many places, such as the EU (not sure about the US).

However, I will support your complaint as I believe this is not how a company should treat its users. At the very least they should always give the option to opt-out of this feature, regardless of past selections. And I also believe these selections should be un-ticked by default, so the user will have to opt-in to get them, if they wanted to.

[FeliTec]

Thank your for support and prompt reply @try67, in the 1. Landing section the only concern is there are no reminder nor any selecion avaliable, in this case, website cookies are not a concern, Windows system installer access rights / adminrator right is. It is crucial to state explicitly clear for the users that the add-ons will be bundled and cannot uncheck from installation process activating the installer,

Currently there is no ground for Adobe to make such assumption as in website there is nothing indicating add-ons like McAfee will be installed (this is how I defined dececiving), and there is no indication to notify user cannot uncheck the add-ons after activating the installer (this is how I defined forcing), these elements simply did not present in any part of the current journey (as stated in one of the post, Adobe used to have it and now those items are removed).

Using administation rights which user intended to allow for the installation of Acrobat DC only, in order to let McAfee has all the access to systems is another concern we have is another concern with potential breach of user consent.

Below is the screenshots of journey, in Taiwan version:

Step 1 Landing: no indication that McAfee will be downloaded

Step 2: after clicking download Acrobat Reader, still no indication that McAfee will be downloaded

Step 3: after installer is activated, this is what we see from the application landing, even when Reader DC is unable to install, McAfee installs anyways

Step 4: Apart from crashing in auto-scan after download, McAfee finded its way to system configuration, possibly riding on the administration permission user granted for Adobe installer as requested.

[try67]

There's no need to repeat all the steps. I did not talk about any of them past the download page (although I agree that it should be possible to stop the installation of the add-ons from the installer itself, not just from the web-page).

However, I still think your description about it is incomplete, and possibly wrong in some cases.

For starers, are you based in Taiwan? If so, then the laws that apply in your location are not the same as those that apply in the US or the EU. It's possible that the local laws there do allow for such bundling of software, even without the user's consent. I really don't know. I do know that that web-page behaves differently based on the geo-location of the user who accesses it.

Also, you didn't say if opening this page in Incognito/Private Mode (or after having deleted all cookies) makes it behave any differently for you. As you can see in the other thread I linked to, it does that for others.

[maghiss]

@try67 you are incorrect. I always considered McAfee to be malware and I am the only user on my machine. The installer simply installs McAfee, even after cancelling the original install.

I am happy to provide a virtual machine that can predictably replicate every time.

[tony3Dski]

I concur! I was not provided any customization options for Adobe Reader. An attached PDF wasn't opening as it should from Google Email, so it basically took me to a page to download Reader. To be clear, there was a description that stated that it would include 2 McAfee products. But, this would lead most to believe they would have an option at install time to exclude them from the actual install.  THERE WERE NO SUCH OPTIONS TO EXCLUDE THESE MCAFEE PRODUCTS FROM THE INSTALL!  I've grown to dislike McAfee very much, and now Adobe forces me to deal with them. Then, if you don't uninstall right away, McAfee rears its ugly head to intercede when opening a PDF and you have to put up with their advertising for all their product variations. Its disgusting that Adobe has associated themselves with this kind of tactic, to be subsidized by that company. I was forced to come to this site to find a way to complain!