Antivirus bundled with Adobe?

Apologies if this has been mentioned before but I came across it today:
http://ostatic.com/blog/adobe-unwanted-application-installation-draws-fire

The link has this "interesting" comment:

I don't recollect being offered anything by Adobe and I most certainly would notice if I had a shiny new AV without installing one knowingly.

 

Adobe has been bundling crap into their installs forever it seems. You'd think this bundling deal would only reside in the world of freeware, but times seem to be changing. Oh well, it's at least different from Chrome being shoved into my face every time I download something these days.

 

They're right, actually. If you can't pay enough attention long enough to see a check mark, I'm not sure what to say. It also depends on the link you use. If you get it straight from Adobes' download page, it's there.

 

For my MS Windows, I let the add-on page of Firefox, which has a "check for plug-in updates" thing, do the dirty work and it did it cleanly.

 

I have seen it and I have unchecked it. Several updates already

 

Hence it is good to take time when installing just not to miss deselecting unsolicited offerings like that

 

I think Mr Sam Dean should look out for those check boxes. It's usually either McAfee, Google toolbar or Chrome. One day I'm going to forget ...

 

I always use the Shockwave installer I download from FileHippo. It invariably comes bundled with a free offer for a Symantec scan, and/or an install of the Google Toolbar.

I decline the scan and uncheck any bundle offers. Nothing gets installed, yet this doesn't prevent the installer from still leaving a Symantec .dll and several Google .dlls in the system32/Adobe/Shockwave 11 folder (on XP), which I then always delete manually.
No big deal, yet I do find it somewhat irritating that I have .dlls from applications I don't want and specifically opted out of put onto my machine anyway.

I don't believe, to the best of my current recollection, I experience the same when installing Flash, the installer for which I also always pick up from FileHippo.
Those are the only two Adobe (though actually, 'Macromedia') softwares I use.

'Bundling' is just the way of the software world these days, and one always needs to be alert for those boxes, which are invariably pre-checked as 'opt in'.

 

It's far from an AV, more like an on-demand POS.