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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!"
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."
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!
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
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.
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?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Memory:
noscript, adblock, flashblock to cut down unnecessary bullshit
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
Bring back the protocol in the URL bar:
about:config -> browser.urlbar.trimURLs = false
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.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
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.