I hate Adobe. They download junk every few days and it takes way too much time.
If there were any way I could do without them, I would.
Like HP. Those ink-sucking-pigs should be (economically) taken out and shot.
Flash Player Help /
Background updates
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-background-updates.html
I think turning off the auto-update for Adobe would help in your situation. As far as HP, I have a few older business machines, both desktops and laptops, and have had no problems. It helped when Compaq was acquired by HP, personally, since at the time I acquired one of the laptops it came with quite a bit of free programs preinstalled which were for the most part very helpful indeed.
“Like HP. Those ink-sucking-pigs should be (economically) taken out and shot.”
I just wandered by your post.
Personally, I use color printing for....almost nothing.
I highly reco checking out a Brother monochrome laser printer. These things are ridiculous. Sometimes they are on sale for $50-$60 with a starter (half capacity) cartridge included. The carts are about $20 each on ebay and they print maybe 2K pages. I have had one of these for several years and had zero problems with it. It only has USB input, cannot be (directly) networked. Bulletproof. A tad slow but for 90% of printing jobs, 1-2-3-4-5-6 pages, well under a minute. I have printed out 350 page books on it, just keeps going. The printing is just fine. Amazing machine for $50-$60.