I don’t know why companies go out of their way to buck standards. Adobe hit me today, although I frequently feel this browsing around Apple’s developer portal as well.

I’m trying to get a trial version of Photoshop Elements. Any other website had a visible link to “Try Free!”, which you can click on, possibly go through a login wall (ugh, but fine), and click a link, which starts downloading.

Adobe takes me to a download page, which requires that I download their Download Manager. I download that, install it, and it prompts me to update Adobe Air, from something like 2.3392 to 2.4498 (numbers don’t matter, the point is it was a minor sub-point release). Do I need it? Who knows?

So I politely decline, and then I need to log in. Of course I forgot my password, so that takes me BACK to the Adobe website to reset my password, to my email account, to the temporary link, and back to the downloader, which FINALLY starts downloading my trial version.

Except then the fan starts spinning up on my quad-core MacBoook Pro. So I open Activity Monitor:

So the magical download manager is the top 3 spots, collectively taking at times half of my entire computer’s CPU power. To download something.

Really Adobe? There’s no easier way?