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Google Builds a Native PDF Reader Into Chrome

Posted by kdawson on from the hugging-adobe-harder dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google's latest Chrome 6 Developer Update comes with a few subtle GUI changes, but there is also a major update under the hood. As its ties with Adobe quite apparently grow stronger, there is not just an integrated Flash player, but also a native PDF reader in the latest version of Chrome 6. Google says the native reader will allow users to interact with PDF files just like they do with regular HTML pages. The reader is included in Chrome versions (Chromium) 6.0.437.1 and higher, and you can use the feature after you have enabled it manually in the plug-ins menu. That is, of course, if you can keep Chrome 6 alive — Windows users have reported frequent crashes, and Google has temporarily suspended the update progress to find out what is going on." The Register has some more details on the PDF plugin and a link to Google's blog post about it.

2 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Re:PDF plugin, OK. PDF built-in? Not so sure... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not fully qualified to comment on this since I will never be a Chrome user until someone forks off a "stainless steel" release where a group of people have poured over the source code to ensure there is no Google data collecting going on and then compiles it themselves for distribution.

    No, I think what you want is the "tinfoil hat" release.

    But seriously, it's called Chromium. It's the fully open source project that feeds into Chrome, and it's free of all Google branding and such. For what it's worth though, there's nothing in Chrome that does anything remotely close to what you're afraid of. Feel free to run it for a couple of weeks through a debugging proxy to watch what it does (I have).

  2. Re:Chrome, you're losing me! by Zarel · · Score: 5, Informative

    From a security point of view, I'd feel better if Google wrote their own PDF implementation. Far be it for me to read TFA, but I get the impression that this code comes from Adobe, whose software generally makes me nervous.

    I've read it for you. The code doesn't come from Adobe, Google wrote it themselves. It also uses Google's new sandboxed plugin API, so it would be less of a security concern even if it did.

    (I'm surprised you got two replies who also didn't RTFA.)

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