Acrobat - Standalone or Plugin?

[Thomas Dowling]

W4L--

I've been made aware of the fact that several OhioLINK libraries set up
their public workstations to run Adobe Acrobat as a standalone
application, while most of the others set it up to run as a browser
plugin.  In at least one context, we've chosen to suggest that browsers
open a PDF file in a new window with a TARGET attribute.  This pleases the
Plugin People, because the PDF download can be slow, so it chugs along in
the second browser window while they continue their search session in the
original window.  But it saddens the Standalone Stalwarts because it opens
both a new (empty) browser window and an Acrobat window, which they
believe will confuse inexperienced users.

Does anyone have insights into any technical advantages to running Acrobat
standalone vs plugin?

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu