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I have Foxit installed and can usually use that, but am forced to have Adobe Reader installed for other reasons.

Adobe Reader will now never be updated on my machine. It’s a small price to pay. And Foxit is great for most pdf tasks.

There was a point not so long ago where Adobe Collaboration Sync got so bad on my Windows 10 box it wouldn’t let me close any pdfs that were open. “File in use” error, even if all Adobe programs were closed except for that pdf. I’d have to go into Task Manager and manually kill it. Between that and Adobe Updater I couldn’t get rid of it by any known means, and it was choking the shit out of my machine.

I’m transitioning to Linux but not there yet, still need the Windows box for now, so I had to do something. But I’m old school, so it was a DOS batch file to the rescue. I call it “kiladobe.bat”:

taskkill /f /im armsvc.exe       
del "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\armsvc.exe"      
taskkill /f /im AdobeCollabSync.exe     
del "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\AdobeCollabSync.exe"      

It’s now a scheduled task in taskschd.msc. I put kiladobe.bat in the main Adobe program folder (heh) and run that task as administrator at startup and every four hours or so, give or take an hour.

No more problems.

Now, all that remains is that every so often I see the command window flash up for a split second because this batch file is killing Adobe shit, and it just makes me smile. (I could probably make it stop flashing up the CLI, but I genuinely enjoy the reminder of how I’m fucking Adobe’s virus-like install and lock endeavors up the ass.)

EDITED TO ADD a simple “@echo off” by itself as the first line would probably turn off any appearance of the CLI, if anyone wants to use this text for their own batch file. If that didn’t work I’d probably throw a space and a “>nul” at the end of each line to grab the output and throw it into neverneverland.

Excellent response. You put it perfectly.

I like this sub exactly the way it is. If something isn’t for me, I move on. Not a big deal. And OP asked a great question. I never thought about it either, lol.

Admin approval with some text that needs a little bit of thought to fill out is surprisingly effective and definitely slows down spammers a lot.

I had to do that on dbzer0 and I think beehaw, they were both a fun exercise and took no time at all. Hell, I ended up submitting a wall of text about Sacco and Vanzetti on dbzer0 if I remember correctly, lol. But if nothing else they knew that it was 1) a human, and 2) I really believe what I was saying.

If the point is to get regular users who are thoughtful participants in online communities, requiring an email address and the typing of a few coherent words on their own behalf is NOT a barrier to entry, or even a much of a bar. After all, these people are applying to join a forum in which they are presumably going to spend unlimited time typing statements of their own creation in the future. Instance owners are just requiring a bit of that up front, and it’s not a huge ask.

It is, however, a very frustrating requirement for people who want to open multiple accounts for spamming and trolling purposes, and for that reason alone is a great filter for applicants.

I never heard it explained that way. What an excellent comment. Thank you for taking the time.

Eventually it started slipping

If you still have the printer (you may not but I’m going to put this out there for others too) that sounds like a simple roller replacement, and rollers/pickup pads are usually considered “consumables” instead of “parts” because they all wear out over time. This is true for most if not all consumer printers, ink and laser alike.

Replacements should be pretty easy to find for even old printers, and the installation is usually pretty straightforward. Last year I was still able to buy a roller replacement set for a 19 year old HP, and it took me ten minutes and one Phillips head screwdriver to replace them all.

You can also just take out and clean the hell out of anything rubber with isopropyl alcohol, letting it dry thoroughly and then putting it back in, or if possible rotate the rubber on it to present an unused side, I’ve done all that a few times too.

For pretty much any model printer, search on the printer model number and “maintenance kit” to find available roller/pickup pad replacements for sale, and printer model number plus “service manual” to get replacement instructions if you need them.

Awesome. Joined. Thank you.

Holy shit. I hadn’t seen that one. Thanks for the link.

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Get some time and space to yourself, 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the complexity of the situation. Think about exactly who/what you are angry with, and why (including yourself*). Don’t worry about solving it, just get it front and center in your mind. Pile up a huge number of couch cushions. Beat the ever livin’ fuck out of them with your fists and feet until you break down or wear yourself out. Repeat as necessary.

*Note: One of the reasons some emotional things never die is because we try to solve them without including ourselves in the equation: we see forgiveness is needed but we don’t include ourselves, for example, or guilt needs addressing but we don’t want to measure our own part in it because someone else’s betrayal was so overwhelming that it’s almost unbearable to think of the self as participatory in that destruction. Yet those are examples of exactly the kind of inner situation that keep us stuck in unhealthy emotional patterns. If you really want to get out of an emotional trap, including anger that doesn’t quit, and you think you’ve tried everything, try specifically looking for exactly what you don’t want to see about your own part in it.

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Sounds like you’re not the only person using your devices, including network and router. And even if you are, if you live with others and not on a VPN you’re very likely sharing an open IP with people of different tastes as well as gender. I get my spouse’s YouTube recommendations all the time, even when not signed in and on a totally different machine, because to YouTube it’s all coming from the same IP.

It’s not a huge mystery.

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Look at their post history, lol

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I think that’s a bit of an overreaction.

It’s neither reaction nor overreaction; it is simply a statement of possibility. One of many, because Meta has not told us what their real intentions are, and no one could believe them even if they did.