In a perfect world, we’d all have a feature-packed, free PDF editor that can do everything you might need whenever you’re given an important document to fiddle with.

One of the main reasons people don't like using Acrobat Reader for viewing PDFs is that it has historically been a popular target for hackers (and the updates that might prevent attacks are often slow and intrusive). However, according to Adobe itself, since the release of version 10 last year the number of vulnerabilities identified and exploited has dropped dramatically. The bad news? Those hackers are now looking towards Flash.

Dear Lifehacker, I wanted to know if there was a way to stop all the annoying Acrobat Reader and Flash updates on Windows. It seems every day there is a new update! Thanks, Flash Forward

Ed. note: If you do extensive reading on a computer screen you know how quickly start black-on-white text can strain your eyes. One Lifehacker reader, tired of straining his eyes, changed the default background colour with pleasing results.

Acrobat Reader can often be a source of annoyance, and one challenge is getting it to work on 64-bit systems -- but you can get the job done with a simple registry fix.