Adobe wrote to my hosts file. I've never had an app do this before

Redditor thenickdude commented:

> I found that in my hosts file the other day too, and I investigated to find why they're doing it at all.

> They're using this to detect if you have Creative Cloud already installed when you visit on their website.

> When you visit https://www.adobe.com/home, they load this image using JavaScript: https://detect-ccd.creativecloud.adobe.com/cc.png

> If the DNS entry in your hosts file is present, your browser will therefore connect to their server, so they know you have Creative Cloud installed, otherwise the load fails, which they detect.

> They used to just hit http://localhost:<various ports>/cc.png which connected to your Creative Cloud app directly, but then Chrome started blocking Local Network Access, so they had to do this hosts file hack instead.

The same Adobe that is squatting my /documents folder on my Mac ?

Ddev does this too, to set up local domains when you’re offline. Asks for permission at least.

This is the kind of thing that erodes trust slowly. Most users will never notice, and that's exactly the point. Would be interesting to know if this is documented anywhere in Adobe's ToS or if it's purely undisclosed behavior.

How is Adobe modifying a system file at all? Does Adobe run a background process with root privileges?

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47617463

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