Adobe reader took over computer
 

I wanted to try to install the Midori web browser, I installed it with yum and it did not say that it installed any dependencies with it.

When I first opened it, it came up and in front of it was a window from Adobe Reader (which I never installed and don't want) in sone wierd language. I clicked that I do not agree (the buttons had English text on them, too), and closed Midori. I tried to open Midori again and the same thing happened.

I opened a terminal and typed yum erase midori *adobe*, and it did not list adobe reader again, just Midori. Anyway, I said yes to uninstall it. I thought that was finished.

Later I browse to a web page in Firefox and there is a link to download a PDF. I clicked on it, thinking Firefox will open it in Evince as usual, but that wierd adobe reader window came back!!!:eek:

I then tried sudo find / -name adobe -print, and it came up with 4 results. 3 of them were in a fonts folder, and their "last modified" date was a long time ago, so I knew they were not it. The other one was in /opt, and even had "Reader8" in it's pathname. So I ran sudo rm -rf /opt/Adobe, and again thought that I was done with it.

I tried to open that link again and WEIRD LANGUAGE ADOBE READER IS BACK!!!

How do I rid my hard drive of that horrible thing?!?

Are you sure it is not some sort of malware?
that will take a while but should find it all, just look over it before you rm

It didn't show any results.

It seems that now it says "Adobe Reader not found it path variable". Actually now I remember that I was wrong in the original post, it actually said that since I remover /opt/Adobe.

Maybe it is malware, maybe not. It did look very weird, with the buttons having strange language characters, and underscore, and then English. It had a "language" popup that was set to some strange language, though.

I see that there is even an adobe reader icon in the Applications menu.

Please tell me how to get every trace of this off my computer!

Slightly off-topic, but: I installed Midori on a 64-bit Arch laptop and there was no sign of Adobe Reader. What I did find was a browser that does not quite seem ready for prime time.

As for the main question: Other that searching for files as already suggested, you may need to edit some menus and/or desktop configuration files.

But I don't know which!

What I have noticed so far is that Firefox wants to open PDFs in a nonexistent integrated Adobe Reader instead of the usual Download/Open in Program prompt, and that the GNOME menu (and probably the KDE menu too, but I don't use it) has an Adobe Reader icon that says no such program exists when I click on it.

I don't know where the config files for all this are.

Try your trusty package manager and search for Adobe, Midori, Flash, Reader. Then uninstall everything that looks like it. Also try rebooting your PC; since that may be remove any trace of it. Did you sudo anything in that was untrusted?

Unrelated: I find your post humorous although I don't want to be mean because it sounds like hell too. You are funny though.

Anyways the GUI package manager should tell if any suspicious thing are going on.

If you do that and all other solutions and you come down to the fact it might be malware, you might want to check what daemons are running and look at all your startup services and see if those show anything suspicious.

Also; in no particular order:

Have you tried actually deciphering what the Adobe Reader installer says, like with Google Translate?

What is your default PDF viewer?

Could you post a picture attachment of this beast?

Have you checked your Firefox plugins?

Does this happen when you are super user? Normal User?

Malware check: have you ran an nmap port scan of your computer?

Have you tried your home folder (looking at hidden home files and such)?

Have you attempted to delete said files as the Normal User; instead of Sudo?

Try a netstat and look for something?

Do you have Samba connections? Remote viewing and access enabled?

Malware check: Rogue MS Office documents can infect Linux computers. Have any?

Malware check: WINE applications, any unsafe ones?

Try that checklist. That's what I would do, if I were you.

I used my package manager before and removed Midori, but it couldn't find *adobe* of *reader*. Erasing /opt/Adobe took care of it, but many of my programs are still set to use Adobe Reader a their PDF viewer, and then complain when they find that it doesn't exist.

I do have Adobe Flash installed, by the instructions on Fedora's wiki (it's a pain but worth being able to view videos online, and again why can't they use <video> tags?), but I haven't noticed any signs of Adobe Reader after installing it.

I'm just trying to help you narrow it down.
This problem could literally be because of anything, so checking all possibilities is a good way to go, that way we can find out exactly what is causing the problem. I it's a rogue document or file, it might hide itself somewhere legitimate. It's a good idea to check stuff out and is strongly recommended you don't give out any personal info or credit card number until the issue is resolved.

Of course then again it could be just a simple problem that won't do anything at all, so that's why covering everything is smart.

Perhaps a different approach would work just as well, and another LQ'er could help you.

Just giving the best help I can.

And for the record...did you ever install Adobe Reader on this install?

No, I can't anymore because I manually removed it.

Evince

No, I can't anymore because I manually removed it.

I just did, and I found an Adobe Reader plugin! I disabled it, but how to remove it?

I haven't tried it as super user. I do all my work as a normal user.

What does that mean?

I haven't, but I am looking now and found a ".adobe" directory containing directories "Flash_Player" and "Acrobat". I just erased "Acrobat".

Of course I deleted /opt/Adobe as root.

What does that mean?

No, I don't even know what Samba is.

No.

I don't even have WINE installed.

I would not be surprised if the easiest solution turned out to be a fresh install of the OS......

I didn't install Adobe Reader, at least not that I know of.

It's just you are bombarding me with so many posts that I can't reply in time, and when I finish one there is another post before it!

Well if it's malware, an nmap scan would show your open ports...useful knowledge against malware and just plain helpful. Nmap is a port scanner that will detect vunerabilities.

For malware again: Netstat is a command that shows you active connections; useful against keyloggers and the like.

Samba helps Linux users communicate with Windows machines on a network.

You should be able to simply disable the FF plugin with the GUI; -> Tools -> Add-ons -> Plugins -> (adobe reader) -> Disable.

The Acrobat in /home is interesting; have a look in usr/share as well.

Maybe, but here are 3 things that make it very difficult to set up a new install for me (I use Fedora because there things are a little easier in it):

Because my computer is very far from the router, I must use WiFi. Without it I cannot have internet access. The driver is a huge pain to install, and not open source.

I use two monitors. I don't know how to configure it and Fedora's scheme with no xorg.conf is the only time it ever worked.

I can't watch videos online without Adobe Flash. Enough said.

It would be great if I didn't have to deal with all this..