Talk:PDFCreator

Importance

It was requested on the main article page that someone try to explain the importance of the subject matter; although I didn't write the article I thought that I would try to do that. I think PDFCreator is important (or at least as important as many of the other things that there are articles in Wikipedia on) because it's the only GPLed product for easily producing PDF files from any application, under Windows. At least that I've ever heard of. The reason this is important is because it solidifies PDF as an acceptable format to people who don't want to be locked into using proprietary tools: if all of the tools used to create PDFs were proprietary/non-free, then it's a much less open format. But the presence of GPLed tools to easily make PDFs mean that the PDF format can't be "closed off" by Adobe later on. That's at least the explanation I've been given.

It's also important, being GPL, because it can be used commercially without restrictions. There are a lot of little PDF printer drivers out there which are "free" in the sense of not costing anything to the non-commercial user, but they're useless in a commercial setting. A GPLed piece of software can be used without restrictions.

It might be more appropriate to roll this article into a bigger article on GPLed software projects, or perhaps "GPL software projects on non-free systems," (there are a few other Windows GPL applications that I can think of, which are not portable), rather than its own article.

Kadin2048 17:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Features

It would be nice to have a bit more information about the features of this software on this page. For example, I know that this can be used to create a pdf, but after installing the software can I also view pdf files that others send to me? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.144.143.5 (talk • contribs) 04:33, April 11, 2006 (UTC)

Yes of course, but even the free Adobe Acrobat reader will do that 194.83.141.169 15:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

No you can't view the file. You need a reader for that. The featurer are, more or less, that you can create a PDF file. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.253.140.217 (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, PDFCreator comes with PDF Architect, which is a free PDF viewer and editor (with paid extended features). We can add more about the functionality on the page, but we don't want to appear to be advertising for ourselves here. What would be the procedure for this? Pdfforge (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

No advertising clause

"Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Promotional articles about yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles written as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in accordance with our deletion policies. For more information, see Wikipedia:Spam."

I'd be interested to see how this article is anything aside from promotion of a specific product or service? Mgmirkin 19:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There are many wikipedia articles on software, but this is not advertising as these articles can have criticism too 194.83.141.169 15:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio

It seems as if a lot of this article has been copied from another site. It needs rewritten. bruce89 19:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

Wikipedia editors who use PDFCreator may want to add this userbox to their user page:

Code	Result	What links here
|{{User:Ahunt/PDFCreator}}	This user creates PDFs in Windows with PDFCreator.	Usage

- Ahunt (talk) 20:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between this PDF Creator and the one from download.com?

What is the difference between this PDF Creator (v0.95 on the web site) and the one from download.com (it says it is v1.1 and it is a 2 day trial) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.168.227 (talk) 12:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The current version of PDFCreator 0.9.5 is available on Download.com or from its own website at www.pdfforge.org. You may have been possibly looking at some other software with a similar name? - Ahunt (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Work around?

I am sceptical if there is any getting around the malware|toolbar it installs, aside from painstakingly editing the source. Give sufficient evidence and instructions. Erudecorp ? * 14:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If it was open source, can't someone edit the crap out and post it elsewhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.65.117 (talk) 14:53, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You think that would have already happened! It seems to be a failing of the open source philosophy that this hasn't yet occurred. - Ahunt (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The spyware is not in the PDFCreator tool itself, but is located in the installer, which is probably closed source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.82.52.214 (talk) 20:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

If you uncheck the toolbar in BOTH places, it does not install.

You have to uncheck the "browser add on" in the custom list of components to install. If you do this, as far as I have seen the toolbar does not install, and no search or DNS settings are interfered with. (This was true in version .9.8) I have not been able to find a reliable source that would defend my statement, but if someone does find one it would make a good addition to the article. Sevomm (talk) 00:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If a ref can be found that would be helpful - right now we have two refs that say it installs anyway! - Ahunt (talk) 00:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)'

Unfortunately, as of version 1.2.0, there is no way to opt out whatsoever. So, please please please do NOT install PDF Forge in your machine! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.214.25 (talk)

If you have a ref that shows that it can be added to the article. - Ahunt (talk) 14:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

1.2.6 you can opt out - but they're very sneaky. The 2 options you get

#1 I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and wish to install pdfforge Toolbar

#2 Set Yahoo! as my default... etc

Unchecking #2 seems obvious but without reading it properly (silly mistake) it looks like its the usually terms and use that you are required to tick to install an application - which in this case its not, so indeed you can opt out if you uncheck them both.

The article says as of 0.9.7 - but even 0.9.6 (from filehippo) has the toolbar that you have to unselect in the "Select Components" install step. 84.12.14.57 (talk) 07:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Most definitely malware

The toolbar installed with PDFcreator not only replaces 404/DNS error pages, it actually feigns DNS errors when trying to connect to obviously running websites (e.g. Facebook, Google, Yahoo) Unless all these websites are routinely going down, this toolbar (which has no discernable options for uninstalling ANYwhere on my computer) is giving false DNS errors, undoubtedly in an effort to boost its CPM income. I feel the article should reflect this, seeing as how it is a clear sign of this being malicious software as opposed to anything that could possibly be beneficial. 82.217.70.70 (talk) 03:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can find a ref that describes this, other than you own personal experience (read WP:OR,) then by all means please do add it. - Ahunt (talk) 10:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

+1 for bogus DNS errors. This ridiculous package installs its adware even if you uncheck both boxes, and it's giving me no shortage of seemingly random DNS errors for pages which load just fine in Safari. --76.169.1.138 (talk) 23:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

"Just say no" seems to be the best approach. If anyone has some reliable refs to cite we can expand the section on this. - Ahunt (talk) 23:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah - as sad and undeniable the malware inclusion is, the article is veering dangerously much in the original research side. (e.g. "Additionally, forums and bug-tracking on the SourceForge project page appear to be disabled, possibly to discourage complaints" - yes, it's probably plain as day that that's the real reason why the SF features are disabled, but the linked page doesn't say that; this is open-and-shut original synthesis.) Most of the stuff links to forums and like. The SourceForge response page seems particularly telling: SourceForge exhibits incompetence, Wikipedia article, for some reason, explains it as malice. (Are bug tracking systems reliable sources, anyway?) In summary: Where is the response from journalists and security folks? That is desperately needed here. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this looks far too much like WP:OR or at least WP:SYNTHESIS and, lacking any further discussion in over two months, I have removed it long with the tag. - Ahunt (talk) 12:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Installation command string for no toolbar

From PDFCreator discussion board:

Run with ---------->> 
PDFCreator-1_1_0_setup.exe /SILENT /components=\"!toolbar\" /tasks=\"!desktop_icon\" /f /norestart\ 
<<---------- And no Toolbar! 

If someone can verify this and document the switches used, then this should perhaps be included in the article.
Enquire (talk) 11:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

See WP:NOTMANUAL - Ahunt (talk) 12:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this free software?

In reading the licences it looks like a combination of licences, but they are all free licences, not proprietary. - Ahunt (talk) 11:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

My mistake, I missed FairPlay licence which is DRM. I will fix up the info box to reflect this. - Ahunt (talk) 11:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not the FairPlay license from Apple, but another OpenSource license similar to the AFPL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.100.32.207 (talk)

Adware toolbar controversy

This is Philip from pdfforge. As of 2011-11-11 there are several things set wrong in this sections. Also, there is much emotion in the text not reflecting the neutral style of an encyclopedia. The expression "PDFCreator has included an adware toolbar, known as Bigseekpro.com or Somoto.com" is wrong. These are vendor names we do not work with. It also is no adware toolbar, it is a search toolbar. If you claim it is a AdWare, you will need to put proof to it. There is no AV vendor classifying it as AdWare or harmful. This is stated in the section "Response from antivirus vendors" but is wrong and would also need proof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.231.139.198 (talk) 14:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

You need to have a careful read of WP:COI and recluse yourself from editing this article. - Ahunt (talk) 15:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Then please tell me which things I have written were not wrong. I think I have quite clearly stated that things are untrue. Ironically, by reverting my changes you have implemented an article not complying with a "neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia" (see your ref), but with feelings and untrue statements. Please read the above from me again. If you have any evidence, please add references. If not, this has to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.217.4 (talk) 11:50, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You have admitted you represent the makers of this software, which puts you in a Conflict of Interest. Your edit to remove criticism and references of the tool bar shows that you are acting on that conflict of interest. You can't just remove things that make your product look bad on Wikipedia, because you disagree with them. This is not your company website. - Ahunt (talk) 13:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me suggest this to move this issue forward. I have no interest in this product, I don't use it and in fact haven't run Windows for many years, I don't even know anyone who does anymore. I didn't start this article, but I watch more than 7600 articles and my only interest in watching this article is to make sure it is as accurate as verifiable sources permit. So I will carry out a complete review of the refs, the text they support and clean up anything that isn't supported properly by reliable sources. I should have this done by the end of the UTC day today. If you have any better references that will add to the article you can post them here and I will review them and incorporate them if they are acceptable refs. If the company has published any press releases or statements that have not yet been included that would be most helpful to know about. - Ahunt (talk) 14:31, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay I have carefully read every ref and removed those that aren't relevant or fail to meet WP:RS as well as the text that they support. I have also removed other unsupported text and also tightened up the sectioning and paragraphing just to improve readability. I also did a search for new sources for the article and didn't find any reliable sources. As far as I can tell the text there is now reasonably well supported by reliable refs. See what you think of how it looks now. - Ahunt (talk) 18:44, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The whole paragraph needs complete rework, as the toolbar has been removed from the setup: http://www.pdfforge.org/blog/pdfcreator-130-released Would one of the very active reverters do the changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.19.27 (talk) 13:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. - Ahunt (talk) 22:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I've just installed PDFCreator 1.3.1 and it still asked to install a toolbar. -geraki ^T_L 08:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

There have been rumours that the project has a new AVG toolbar, but we are still looking for a reliable ref on that. - Ahunt (talk) 15:25, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

There are many offers shown by the OpenCandy System. There are also uncited passages claiming "MyStart is a backdoor trojan", this is not true at all. This is more a feeling or an opinion. Incredibar is not flagged by AV providers, nor are any of the OpenCandy offers --Philip — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.54.99.197 (talk) 21:11, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

"Incredibar" is recognized by Spybot S&D as spyware. Additionally, the fact that developers chose an opt-out method with a misleading installation dialog is alone cause to justify a controversy. Far from "feeling or opinion," I think this article as it stands today is very factual--if anything it is bias in favor of the developers, as it does not prominently feature (e.g. in the heading) the fact that this software still continues to install additional unwanted third-party software. 108.212.238.124 (talk) 17:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

There are lots of citations to strange things as WOT again. i.e. #17 tries to prove that SweetIM is Malware/Adware/ReallyEvilWare by using a citation that judges a domain. Also, the article became a total mess of users ranting into the article. This is not the style an encyclopedia should have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.78.204 (talk) 13:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It definitely is not malware and most references are just wrong. There are some links to Virus Total (i.e. https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/7f73f9380da9efa36743c5397c5ad5a61ec689303e92c531288a4dab550a1a98/analysis/1460682679/) which are supposed to prove the fact that it contains malware. The detection mostly states potentially unwanted software or advertisements though, which is a completely different matter than malware. If this argument was taken further, every kind of advertisement would have to be considered malware. This whole "Adware toolbar controversy" section does not really comply with the intent of an encyclopedia, it more reads like hating people were looking for a way to express their rage. This should definitely be revised in a way that complies with the rules of wikipedia. We are willing to help and can point out all problematic parts, we would not want to do the edits ourselves because we would not want to look like white washing the page. Who can assist with the task of bringing back the standards of Wikipedia in a compliant way here? Pdfforge (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the whole section is not properly supported by independent third party refs and needs a complete clean-up to meet Wikipedia standards. Let me take a kick at it and see what I can do to improve it. - Ahunt (talk) 23:03, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done - Ahunt (talk) 00:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Removal of the SearchSettings.exe Spigot Trojan

I still havent been able to remove this! Its handle is embedded into svchost.exe, csrss.exe and I cannot delete it. How could they ever include this mess? Maybe someone more knowledgeable could explain how to completely remove this Trojan? 07:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I solved it using Process internals procexp http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653 run it and press CTRL+F, right click all results and close handle on all possible except system, this cannot be done. If that doesnt work kill all processes that use it then delete the folder in program files. I hope it doesnt come back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.233.67.45 (talk) 07:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Please note that Wikipedia is not a forum for solving problems with the subject of the article. You are better off taking that up on a "how-to" forum than here. - Ahunt (talk) 12:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Former of Malware

Now Its Not adware now because toolbar was removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.15.95.47 (talk) 08:20, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

According to the cited text in the article this application still contains new malware. - Ahunt (talk) 12:35, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

The citations are no quatable or reliable sources. They are opinions (16 and 17). The VirusTotal reports are clean on Incredibar and SweetIM. Also, that "fact" that it is a well-known backdoor trojan is just made up by a blog, which is indirectly quoted. This page once again uses very poor citations... Please have a look at that and fix it again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.19.27 (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

In checking the refs the claims in the article do seem relatively well supported by third party refs. The MYWot ref does identify SweetIM as a problem. - Ahunt (talk) 09:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for checking so quickly. 16 links to our forum, but references a blog post that states an unproven "fact": "backdoor trojan". 17 refers to the SweetIM web page. Users post their opinions there.The fact that also child safety is a low as the other points shows, that user don't like something and just pull all sliders down. This is nothing that can be trustfully reference in an encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.19.27 (talk) 17:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the forum posts run afoul of WP:SPS and that the indirectly referenced article is on a Wikipedia black-listed website. I have cleaned all that up. More can be added if proper refs can be located. - Ahunt (talk) 10:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Malware Claim Still Present

It appears that there is still a claim on this article that PDFCreator, upon download, contains maleware, but this conversation muddles the issue... The fact that that this page has this warning conspicuously hidden (not in the introduction) and merely in the controversy section makes this claim troubling, especially since the creaters of parent site seems to have influenced this Wiki page (see above in this talk page). If this is the case, it seems that a warning should be clearly labelled in the introduction Pjbeierle (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

It is right there in the lead section, "Since 2009, PDFCreator has included closed source adware, toolbars and other controversial software that is installed by default." - Ahunt (talk) 23:46, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Very broken. - Ahunt (talk) 13:04, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

New logo

PDFCreator has two generations of new logos and the current logo in the box is really old. I have not been able to upload the new logo as the commons page said, that it would not meet the standards. What would be the way to update the logo? The current logo is: http://www.pdfforge.org/sites/default/files/pdfcreator/3/logo/pdfcreator_free.png (just the logo without text can be used as well). Pdfforge (talk) 07:32, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done - Ahunt (talk) 22:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)