Filed under: Software, Security
Adobe CS3 may disable your firewall
This is ridiculous. Apparently, part of Adobe's Creative Suite 3 (the Adobe Version Cue CS3 Server) requires the Mac firewall to be shut down in order to install correctly. The Adobe installer obligingly shuts your firewall off, but then neglects to restart it afterwards. Adobe has 'fessed up to the problem (as a "critical issue") and suggests manually starting your firewall. So the long and the short of it is this: if you've installed CS3 you need to check to make sure that your firewall is still running. Go the Firewall tab of the Sharing Preference Pane, and if it's not running, click "Start." Adobe is already on thin ice as far as I concerned with their insanely annoying installers, and now this firewall problem is just plain bad.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ThunkDifferent.com said 10:24AM on 5-22-2007
Adobe CS3. Ok, this is another minus against them. i have been consdering upgrading my CS2, just for the web components, but it seems that Adobe isn't rally all that much more compatible than it used to be: issues, bugs, etc. Does anyone have some good advice if i should or should not, the price upgrade is a concern obviously, but the results could make it far more than worthwhile.
http://ThunkDifferent.com
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unclejerry said 10:42AM on 5-22-2007
My advice to you ThunkDifferent, find somebody who is in college and have them buy the educational version for you either in the school book store or from Academicsuperstore.com. They have the premium version for less than $600. Or sign up for 1 class at a junior college, buy it yourself, then cancel your class. It'll save you a lot of money.
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Gordon Werner said 10:57AM on 5-22-2007
what on earth are they installing that would require the firewall to be sut down?
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Andy said 10:59AM on 5-22-2007
1. Yes the installer is way annoying. I installed Acrobat with cs2 and it annoyingly took over my printer with it's pdf printer. I've got OSX, I can print to PDF natively!
Now I installed Acrobat with cs3 (I Didn't learn) and it tries to use acrobat to open pdfs on website within safari. Go AWAY adobe and let my system handle those pdfs
2. I too bought the education version (of photoshop 6, back in the day) but then used it for commercial activities, which is just as illegal as downloading it. So if you're going to use it for work, there's no point paying 600 odd dollars for software you'll use illegally.
If it's not for commercial use then yeah, get that education discount!
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ThunkDifferent.com said 11:17AM on 5-22-2007
Thanks for the advice uncle jerry, i found some alternatives listed on cNet too, its a tough call, but it is nice to know there are so many options. Thanks!
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boxgamex said 11:38AM on 5-22-2007
Oh come on. this isnt that serious, just use a freaking NAT router as your firewall and you are good. I dont even have the os x firewall on.
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Johnny Thrash said 11:49AM on 5-22-2007
I don't understand why people use a software firewall anyway. So it doesn't bother me at all.
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maRk! said 12:57PM on 5-22-2007
I installed CS3 and it didn't turn off my firewall.
I didn't install Version Cue though, maybe that was the culprit?
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Peter said 1:05PM on 5-22-2007
Still got Version Cue CS2 in my System Preference under Sharing -> Firewall and I cant seem to get ride of it either.
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las6 said 3:31PM on 5-22-2007
Lovely. This goes to show how much work they really put into these installers. One would expect that at least expensive software would at least install properly.
And it's not apparently any platform preference - CS2 doesn't install via autorun to anything except english windows XP. And CS3 install requires you to shut down just about everything...even the UI in Vista. >.
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BilboYoshimura said 6:23PM on 5-22-2007
CS2 4 life, or until CS3 has a keygen!
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Geoff Wright said 4:21AM on 5-23-2007
My firewall was off too. But its cool, I'm not a nuclear scientist, nothing to 'pwn' here!
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Steve Mills said 11:24PM on 5-23-2007
Holy cripes. Could it be that Adobe is trying to become another Microsoft? First the stupid icons and boring splash/about windows in CS3, now this.
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raminf said 4:22PM on 5-26-2007
@boxgamex and @Johnny Thrash wonder what's the big deal about turning off the firewall.
For those people who have laptops and use WiFi at schools, libaries, or coffee shops, it's a HUGE deal. Without knowing it, their machines have been open and vulnerable to anyone with a basic sniffer and port-scanner (like iStumbler or Eavesdrop).
This means anyone running file and media sharing, Rendezvous, web sharing, or Apple remote desktop is going around unprotected and not knowing it.
Very, very uncool of Adobe.
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Catt said 6:06PM on 5-26-2007
I have no clue why this thing shuts down your firewall all I know is that it took forever just to install some shared components then quit prematurely before installing any of the programs. Apparently, my first gen Mac Mini did not make the hardware requirement. I'll be sticking with DW 8 & FW 8 until I can upgrade my Mini which won't be until Fall sometime. Even then I'm not sure I want to upgrade. Why did Macromedia have to get swallowed up by Adobe Why?
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Kay said 8:08PM on 8-11-2007
hey, I just got my MacBookPro..and i've never owned my own mac before... Does Mac have its own Anti-virus in it when you get it? The tech guy told me there aren't any virus' made for macs...but i feel a little iffy about it still...
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