So recently, while using CS6, I was hit with a message from "Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service" that looked like the following. I have a legit copy from my company but had installed CC demos to open up Illustrator files from CC in the past, and they're legal. I'm not sure what I did to trigger this, but I found others who had been somehow dragnetted as well.

Adobe's Threatening nagware

Being busy and also currently using Pixelmator Pro with some moderate success, I opted for the nuclear option and found the Adobe CC Cleaner Tool. Surely that should clear up the annoying pop-up? I removed all of the Adobe software on my computer and decided I'd reinstall Photoshop when I needed to again... and yet the pop up persisted after I had deleted all Adobe products off my computer. The popup didn't have a close button, and clicking "learn more" didn't remove it. I used the activity monitor and saw it was still running the Adobe Geniune task and force quit it. Hours later, it was back. This annoyed me.

As a UX developer, nothing irks me more than dark UX. The pop-up software failed to recognize I had removed the software in question, and better yet, why the hell is it still there if I removed all of my Adobe software? That felt deeply dishonest. Fortunately, I know how to grep and use htop. I debated for posting this as I might be helping out some would-be pirates but I'm annoyed that someone like me was sideswiped by this.

  • Launch Activity Monitor from Applications -> Utilities on your Mac. View all the running processes and force quit any of the Adobe ones, especially the Adobe Genuine instances.
  • Go to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and look for the com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist although the version may change after you have read this. Trash anything with the adobe.
  • Go to /Library/Application Support/Adobe and delete the AdobeGCClient directory

I can't say the messaging will return if I try to re-install Photoshop but at least it's stopped the damn pop up. Buy software, support your developers, but also... I might recommend supporting someone other than Adobe, like Bohemian Coding (Sketch), Affinity, and Pixelmator. Please don't email me asking for help on this topic, as I'm not in the business of assisting software pirates.