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Where can I get a copy of Adobe Reader 7 and patches to download? After the recent Reader 7 PDF malware scare, I was an early adopter of Reader 8. I updated my laptop, home computer, and workstation to Adobe Reader 8.0, but I am very unhappy with it and wish to revert. My problems:

1) The IE plugin usually(not always) fails by not properly searching text - instead it apparently searches the PDF source code. As a result, if you have a document that you found in google by searching for the term "setup", Reader 8 will not be able to find the word "setup" in the document in IE, because when it fails the individual letters of the word "setup" will be embedded in the PDF source code. This does not happen with the "nonplugin" version, but it means that I have to save and find each file before I can search it - very bad for finding things quickly.

2) The IE plugin usually (not always) fails by not properly cutting and pasting, for apparently the same reason as 1). This is how I found out that it was using PDF source code rather than the actual text in the first place. When cutting and pasting, garbage would show up. For example, "documents" may get pasted into IE as "#d#o#c#u#m#e#n#t#s", where # is PDF source code. No wonder search can't find items.

3) The program almost never remembers the last directory used. It only seems to remember the last directory used if a copy is kept active - if all the copies are closed, it goes to "My Documents" and you must browse to the directory again. This gets very old when the search is to the same place 8 directories down.

4) When scrolling, Reader 8 is v e r y s l o w when scrolling through, of all things, white space. Every page break my Xeon 3.0 GHz dual processor with 2 GB RAM and dual SCSI drives workstation slows to a crawl. This persists regardless of the settings using for fastfind, etc. As a result, I gave up on scrolling and went to just paging down or up - which doesn't get me exactly where I want to be, but works.

5) The toolbar in IE does not have the same options as are set in the standalone program. A small thing, but another example of the plugin team not communicating with the standalone team.

6) The full search box shrinks the main window, even if there is plenty of grey space on either side to drop it into, which is bad for people with poor eyesight like myself, who then have to reset the sizing every time this feature is used. A small thing, but very annoying.

I never had these problems with Reader 7 on any machine. I now have 3 separate installations on fully patched Windows XP machines that exhibit the same problems with Reader 8. I understand from my company's IT department that 7 has a patch to fix the PDF malware issue, but Adobe no longer has 7 on the website. There are also no updates to 8 to fix these problems. When I hit "Check for updates" under help, Reader 8 informs me that there are no updates available. There are no workarounds posted that I can find, either.

Problems 1) and 2) are intolerable; the slow scrolling nearly so. Every time I use Reader 8 I now get a sour knot in my stomach as the new Adobe Reader interface pops up, knowing the usability has been badly crippled, and that Adobe has not fixed the problems.

I have always thought highly of Adobe up until now. When it was introduced, the speaking interface was a pleasant surprise. I am now tempted to say something crass about the personnel of a company that decided to jeopardize its good will by authorizing inflicting this software on the public, but Reader 8 speaks for itself. It screams "Not ready for release! No bonus for you!" This is the first strong argument for using PostScript that I have seen.

I cannot recommend this product to anyone. I would use a different product, in spite of the fact that I have used only Adobe since PDFs came out. Where can I get a patched version of 7, or can someone recommend a different product?