Adobe Modifies Your Hosts File for Their Analytics
Thom Holwerda (via Hacker News):
If you’re using Windows or macOS and have Adobe Creative Cloud installed, you may want to take a peek at your hosts file. It turns out Adobe adds a bunch of entries into the hosts file, for a very stupid reason.
[…]
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.
Sure enough, my /etc/hosts contains:
## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - Start ## 166.117.29.222 detect-ccd.creativecloud.adobe.com ## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - End ##
I don’t even use Creative Cloud. Lightroom Classic is the only app I wish I could get from the Mac App Store, because Adobe’s own updater is so intrusive and terrible.
Previously:
- Adobe Raises Monthly Photography Plan Prices
- U.S. Sues Adobe Over Subscriptions
- Adobe at 40
- Adobe Genuine Service
- Why Do Web Browsers Allow Access to the Local Network?
- Adobe Jumps the Shark
- Adobe Creative Cloud Installer Deleting Hidden Files
Update (2026-04-09): John Gruber:
They didn’t have to do this, of course. In fact, quite obviously, they definitely should not be doing this. Adobe is just a third-party developer, no better, no more trusted, no more important than any other. Imagine if every piece of software on your computer added entries to your
/etc/hostsfile. Madness.
Update (2026-04-10): Nick Heer:
In his headline, Tsai says this is “for their analytics”, but I do not think that is right. I spent a little time digging into this today and, while I have nothing concrete, I expect this is for integrations between web apps and the company’s desktop apps. In Adobe Express — free web apps for a handful of common image and PDF editing tasks — there are at least two JavaScript files containing references to a
ccdDetectUtil, presumably standing for “Creative Cloud Desktop detection utility”. If the user has the desktop apps installed, it appears to suggest the Express app, too, and I am guessing this also powers a thing where you can update a Creative Cloud desktop app by clicking a button on the web.
See also: Hacker News.
13 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Is there recommended action? If I remove it, will it break the installation? Will they just add it again?
The recommended action is to pirate Adobe software and edit your host file to block Adobe’s servers. A better product at a better price, with no hidden cancellation fees or nosy phones home.
You may not be 14 anymore but your putdown is getting up in years. It’s not about being childish or poor when you opt not to pay for software that abuses your computer and abuses trust, especially when you get a superior experience for free. Have fun on your high horse; I’ll have fun sailing my SS Peace of Mind.
Interesting; when I checked my hosts file just now I didn't see any Adobe entries in spite of having Lightroom & CC installed. On the other hand, I don't think I've run any Adobe software since updating to 26.4 a couple weeks ago, maybe that reset it?
Running Lightroom didn't change anything, but after running CC and letting it update first itself & then Lightroom Classic I now have the Adobe entry in hosts. Making the hosts file read-only seems to prevent CC from changing it again.
Didn't SONY do something like this awhile back but it installed a RootKit? Damn I hate crappy people.
@Karl Yes they did, arguably that was even worse since it was included on music CDs that you wouldn't expect to have any software at all. Though if I'm not mistaken at least on the Mac it asked if you wanted to install it, unlike Windows where it was completely silent & automatic.
Making the hosts file read-only didn't last long. Later in the afternoon yesterday I installed 26.4.1 and it installed a new hosts file making it writeable again. So now I have a launchd job making the file read-only at startup.
I asked Claude how to combat this and made the /etc/hosts file on my computer immutable was its suggestion. I've done that, and we'll see what happens with time.
I do not use the default MacOS /etc/hosts file -- I use an ad-blocking hosts file. I just checked and did not find the aforementioned additions. I wonder if it first checks for a user-edited version of hosts and leaves it alone versus the default version?
I just did some Adobe CC updates a few days ago.
Adobe's behavior here seems both obnoxious *and* inconsistent: despite using the latest versions of Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro near-daily on my M4 Pro MacBook Pro, my hosts file doesn't have the Adobe garbage. I checked when I first saw coverage of this, which was before the Mac OS 26.4.1 update, and it wasn't there--and still isn't today after the 26.4.1 update. So . . . how did I emerge unscathed? Not that I'm complaining! Asking because I'd like to keep it that way! Just to help triangulate, a couple of notes on my Adobe setup: (1) it's an institutional license thru my employer (the University of California), not a private subscription; (2) I don't have the Creative Cloud app set to launch on startup and generally don't have any reason to run it unless I get word that there are individual app updates, which I set not to auto-update; (3) I *do* have auto-update active for the Creative Cloud app itself tho, and I do get notifications occasionally on startup that it's been updated even though I haven't launched it; (4) I don't have Adobe fonts activated. Is the answer somewhere in there? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
