Meet Firefox's Built-In PDF Reader

An anonymous reader writes "Not long ago, Mozilla coders announced that they were starting to build PDF.js, a way to display Acrobat documents in the browser using pure web code. No longer will you have to fight with an external PDF plug-in in Firefox. Development on PDF.js has progressed to the point now where you can take an early peek at it. Huzzah!"

Comments

Good

[steevven1]

I usually hate added features to my browser (I prefer a lightweight, fast browser), and Firefox especially has needed to go on a diet for the past year or two (and it has, successfully, since version 4), but I think that this is a pretty fundamental feature for a browser to have. After all, PDF's are everywhere on the 'net. Your browser should be able to show them to you. Gone are the days of saying "Oh, that link to an article I was barely interested in in the first place points to something in PDF format? Nevermind."

Re:Good

[steevven1]

I'll respond to this with a quote from someone else: "If you have a link to something.jpg, would you rather it open in an image viewer in another application window? The ubiquity of PDFs makes them worthy of the same treatment as images."

Re:Good

[keytoe]

I'll respond to this with a quote from someone else: "If you have a link to something.jpg, would you rather it open in an image viewer in another application window? The ubiquity of PDFs makes them worthy of the same treatment as images."

Except that images are inline elements that fit within the document model of a web page and PDF documents are separate ... er ... documents. Images and PDFs are used in completely different ways.

Please God no!

[Spazmania]

I don't want PDFs to open in the web browser. I want to open them in Acrobat in another window. Let the browser be a browser and Acrobat be Acrobat!

Re:Please God no!

[amicusNYCL]

You realize that Acrobat is the #2 attack vector for Windows machines, right? It's right between Java and Flash. Why would you voluntarily use it when there are several other PDF readers which don't even show up on the attack vector charts? I was in a meeting today at the Maricopa County Community Colleges District office and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Foxit reader opened up whenever someone clicked a link to a PDF in IE. They use IE and still have enough sense to get Java and Acrobat off their machines.

I like the idea...

[rsilvergun]

But it scares me. PDFs are hideously complex. Can you really do this without opening a whole new world of security vulnerabilities? I guess it's in the JavaScript engine, and that's where the security is....

On an upside, it's cool to see what sort of document processing is possible when you've got as many CPU cycles as you do these days :).

Re:I like the idea...

[philarete]

The potential vulnerabilities are there whether the PDF is being opened in Acrobat or in the browser. Adobe Reader/Acrobat is one of the main ways that PCs get infected with malware. Comparing Adobe's security track record with that of Mozilla, I'd much prefer to let Firefox handle PDF viewing.

Re:I like the idea...

[Darinbob]

Step one make sure that it never ever writes to disk, uses the network, accesses DLLs. A reader should never write. Don't allow any operations that may be insecure and provide them as no-ops only. Any operations that are for display only are allowed, anything else should be highly suspect. Ie, go back to just what version 1 or 2 of PDF formats allowed.

It is absolutely absurd and illogical that something called "Adobe Acrobat READER" has security flaws that allows it to WRITE. Display the document only, only allow rendering. If there are special features that MUST be used for some inane corporate use then require using a separate standalone PDF malware vector for this, but you don't need to provide that broken functionality in a limited browser version.

There are real problems to solve first, Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

What Mozilla apparently doesn't realize is that there are serious problems with Firefox that should be fixed long, long before this sort of crap is added.

1) The poor performance and the extreme memory usage. Yes, this is still a problem. It's easily reproducible with fresh Firefox installations. No, it's not a problem extensions. No, it's not a problem with plugins. No, it's not a problem with my computer (Chrome, Opera and Safari run just fine). The problem is solely with Firefox.

2) Can the "UI designers". The Firefox UI has been completely trash since Firefox 4. It is much less usable than earlier releases. Bring back the status bar. Bring back the menu bar. Bring back the protocol in the URL bar. Don't make us install extensions or resort to other hacks just to bring back this basic and integral functionality!

3) Fix the fucking auto-update process and the releases so that extensions don't break near-constantly!

4) Stop trying to imitate Chrome. If we wanted to use a browser like Chrome, we'd fucking use Chrome! If we aren't using Chrome, it's probably because we want something different.

For crying out loud, Mozilla, fix these real issues that affect every user before adding useless crap like this PDF nonsense to Firefox.

Re:How about eradicating PDFs instead?

[amicusNYCL]

Sure, PDFs are great for printing, but who prints anymore? It's 2011.

You're being serious, right? You think that companies everywhere dumped their printers in the garbage why?

Depends on what "features" Firefox enables

[knorthern knight]

PDF started out as "Portable Display Format" that showed you what a document would look like if you sent it to a decent printer.. If it had stayed that way, it would be ideal. Unfortunately Adobe succumbed to the Microsoft/Mozilla "features disease". The "latest greatest" versions now support javascript, live URLs that you can click and go to. And then there's "/launch" (it's not a security hole, it's a feature). Not to mention support for schlockwave trash.

Over the years people have complained about how every new version of Adobe Reader is more bloated, and takes longer to load than its predecessor. If Firefox offers a lightweight PDF ***READER***, I'm all for it. But puhlease, not all the stupid features in Adobe's version. Speaking of versions, the one feature I strongly suggest is that Mozilla allows its PDF engine to lie about what it is. Just like asshole webdesigners who hardcode Internet-Explorer-only into their web pages, I'm sure there are idiots who hardcode their webpages to only allow Adobe Reader above a certain version to access their PDF documents.

Re:How about eradicating PDFs instead?

[Jeremy Erwin]

PDFs are great for scientific papers. The equations and footnotes are formatted correctly, I can cross reference 30 or 40 pages at once, without trying to click back and forth through ad laden pages, and I can see two pages at once on my wide screen monitor, or go back to a single page if I want to make Preview.app's window smaller.

The alternatives based on Flash are horrible-- the anti-aliasing is subpar, the window can't be resized and so on.

That does it.

[Fuzzums]

If this finds it's way into FF, I'll finally will ditch FF.
They are WAY of the KISS path. Updates every week, new GUI every 6 weeks. FRELL THAT!
I want long term stability in my browser. Not this crap.

FF. Time to branch the development. One for BS and one for KISS. I'll install the plugins I need.
Oh. About:plugins. Stop breaking them every 3 months.

Re:How about eradicating PDFs instead?

[melikamp]

PDFs are great for scientific papers.

Only for printing. The difference between PDF (produced from something like LaTeX) and XHTML+MATHML+SVG is that

(1) PDF is paginated nicely, which is essential for printing, and an obvious minus for on-screen viewing.

(2) PDF has lost the content layer, which is nearly irrelevant for printing, and unforgivable for on-screen viewing.

What you really need for scientific papers is a large page that can flexibly display full color text and images. PDF is one of the best ways to describe a printable version, but it's a far cry from the best way to describe an on-line document .

Re:How about eradicating PDFs instead?

[ortholattice]

Scientific papers are done primarily in LaTeX. I'm guessing you don't actually write science papers, eh?

Yes, in they usually are done in LaTeX in math and physics. However, the resulting PDF (or less frequently, PostScript) is what is distributed and viewed. I have published many papers myself and have never had a reprint request for the original LaTeX, only for the PDF.

The LaTeX goes to the publisher (usually written to the journal's standards using highly customized formatting packages), who redistributes it in a printed journal and usually on-line in PDF form (unfortunately for a price). Some journals force you to use a two-column format, which I agree with another poster is awful to read on-screen; I have no control over that. When the publisher allows, I put a preprint in PDF format on arxiv.org where you can get it for free.

A problem with a flowing text document format is that the page numbers are variable, making references to specific pages and paragraphs impossible. I also tend to have a "page memory" where I can recall roughly what the page looked like and where on the page an item I want to find is positioned. I think a lot of people have had the experience of not remembering exactly in a book something was, but they remembered where it was on the page it and can quickly find it by thumbing through pages. I am not as good at remembering where something was in a flowing document and have to resort to a search, which is doesn't work too well for equations and symbols.

I have a large collection of scientific paper PDFs that I constantly reference. One thing I do (when the publisher doesn't lock the PDF) is trim off the margins so that fill-width view automatically fits the full text on screen without having to zoom by trial-and-error and futz with the horizontal scroll bars. Actually even when the publisher locks it, if it is a paper I reference frequently I'll print it to a PDF, then trim the annoying margins and re-OCR it.