Regular readers have seen several articles in the last few months about different patches, updates, hot-fixes (same thing) in several programs, Adobe’s PDF reader amongst them. This article is not about another one of those patches.

Now that we have made clear what this article is not about 🙂 , let’s take a look at what it IS about. Adobe released, a few days ago, a new version of its reader, version X (latest prior version was 9, get it?). The highlight of this new version is the fact that it incorporates sandboxing capabilities. Sounds good, right? Well maybe, if one knows what in the name of all that is Holy “sandboxing” is.

This article from last year covered the subject. But in a few words, it is a special protected mode. When Adobe Reader X runs in protected mode it provides an added layer of security. In this mode, malicious PDF documents can’t launch arbitrary executable files or write to system directories or the Windows Registry, activities that usually malware attempts to perform to infect a computer.

You can download Adobe Reader X from this location. At this time, users of earlier Adobe Reader versions will not be offered the new version’s download automatically. it needs to be downloaded manually (meaning initiated by the user, i.e. click on the above link!).

To check the status of protected mode, open Adobe Reader X, then choose File > Properties > Advanced > Protected Mode.