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Firefox 19 Launches With Built-In PDF Viewer
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla on Tuesday officially launched Firefox 19 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The improvements include a built-in PDF viewer on the desktop and theme support as well as lower CPU requirements on Google's mobile platform. You can see the official changelogs here: desktop and Android."
I would be impressed if they included a Save As or Print To PDF File option like Google Chrome browser does.
New? That went in a few Firefox versions back, I think at Firefox 16. I turned it off, since I use Sumatra PDF (which is dumb, but safe).
From my knowledge it already had PDF built-in, for print preview. Or am I wrong?
TFA links to blogspam, below is the actual release note list from Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/19.0/releasenotes/
Come on, guys.
Are they serious? A built in PDF reader, and this is only the start of things. Meanwhile there are Mozilla bugs that are over half a decade old.
This constant bloat of software, where a program eventually gets filled with so many features that it might as well be Ann entire OS, is one of the most dangerous diseases in the tech world. The irony is that Firefox was originally a lightweight answer to the entire Mozilla suite, because it had grown too bloated.
Every platform out there already has a PDF reader. My operating system has a PDF renderer built in. It works great. Why jam another one in the browser? They're just increasing the attack surface, and if a vulnerability in the PDF format were to crop up now I have to worry about getting patches for yet another thing here.
The Mozilla PDF viewer is written in javascript, so it *should* be completely sandboxed.
1. it's got adblockplus
2. it's the only browser left that isn't directly targeted at marketing interests over my privacy (you worry about holes, but then trust google??)
3. a useful library of plugins. sure other browsers have this now, but not like firefox.
does that excuse the performance issues? hell no.
I want to be able to download my PDF's securely!!
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Firefox uses less memory than Chrome these days.
Plus, Firefox is just as fast as Chrome, typically.
And, finally and most importantly, Firefox has a zillion useful extensions. Like NoScript and Adblock.
Chrome is fine, but I don't like how it handles tabs (I use TabMixPlus on Firefox), and I *really* hate how hard it makes it to access bookmarks. Yes, you can solve the bookmark issue with extensions, but none of them are *quite* right.
Can it jump to page and display page numbers, or does it mimic Chrome in ignoring this frustratingly obvious functionality?
We banned it from our company after waiting years for various memory leaks to be fixed.
That was fixed. The Firefox memory heap is now divided into "compartments", and Firefox 15 changed memory management to be more aggressive at purging compartments associated with closed pages.
Just let me damn well download the files, never open in a tab and render it.
Yes I know you can set this option but I use 3 damned PC's - and FF updates regularly (or dies and I need to do a clean profile) I'm sick of adjusting things to make things work properly.
Like the ridiculous copy and paste http:/// bug - they strip it from the URL (breaking bloody standards) and I copy and paste it elsewhere. 95% of the time it auto-adds the http:/// as it should, however 5% of the time it doesn't and it's frustrating (because it should never be removed in the damned first place!)
I use Acrobat for Linux because it's the only pdf reader I've ever seen that actually works correctly with pdf layers, which is very nice when used with map PDF's, because you can choose which features you want to see on the map.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
### This line should go close to the start, near where
### the current Acrobat Reader macro is defined
define(EVINCE, [repeat swallow(evince) fill needs_xembed: evince "$file"])
### this group should go in the Documents section, possibly
### replacing the defective existing group for PDF
application/pdf:pdf:PDF file
application/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file
text/pdf:pdf:PDF file
text/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file
EVINCE()
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Or is the Firefox dev team still sure that they know better than I do, so that shouldn't be an option?
Chrome is built on good technology, but since it is proprietary closed source I prefer Firefox.
Definitely faster than PDF plugin. I've been using the pdf.js plugin since it first appeared. I'd never go back to the plugin.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
Chrome is fine,
Chrome is a virus that attaches itself to various other useful programs and hopes that you don't notice the "install Chrome, too" box is checked by default when you are doing something like updating java. It makes itself your default web software without asking. And then when you try to uninstall it, you are left with cruft that breaks how Firefox behaves, like getting an obscure error text about some missing or undefined variable in line X of something displayed instead of a simple 404 failure report.
It managed to weasel its way onto a laptop I administer because apparently it attached itself to something useful that I allowed a user to install. I fired it up to see how it did at browsing the web and the first thing it did was demand that I log into the google cloud using a gmail account. That's before I even tried to load any web pages with it. Why do I need to HAVE a cloud account just to use a web browser, much less be forced to log into it before I am allowed to go anywhere?
Firefox uses less memory than Chrome these days.
That's not a good thing. For example Firefox doesn't decode images until they are displayed to reduce memory consumption. The result is that it judders as you scroll and switching tabs introduces a noticeable delay.
My laptop has 4GB of RAM. My desktop has 16GB RAM. Even the graphics card has 3GB. I bought lots of RAM because I want performance, not pointless memory saving that slows me down. Memory benchmarks are not a good way to evaluate a browser.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are they giving everyone a leg up by breaking all the add-ons?
Didn't break any of the 24 I have installed. YMMV, of course.
My 800 MHz ARM Android phone can't even run Firefox because of it's resource requirements (I'm glad there's Dolphin) and it's getting bigger and slower, not faster and learner, on my desktop. I'd rather see JavaScript speeds improvements and fat cutting. There's plenty of good external programs for opening PDF files already (okular, evince, etc), the browser does not need to open PDF files itself any more than it needs to open OpenDocument spreadsheets.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Biggest annoyance keeping me from using Chrome more is the lack of a clear address bar plug-in. Linux has this wonderful feature of being able to highlight something then middle clicking to past it. Takes a couple of clicks away from a cut-n-paste action and is real easy to do while surfing around. Without a way to clear the address bar, this is useless. I've been using Linux for over 15 years, don't remember when it was introduced but I've become so accustomed to it, I really can't do without it.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Well they are giving everyone a leg up by including a PDF view. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?
Well, it's rendered as HTML5 with some help from JavaScript. Speaking of JavaScript, however, my quick testing suggests that PDFs with JS code are not well supported; they show a yellow bar at the top suggesting you open with another reader.
This, coupled with the fact that it's written using rendering tools Mozilla has already had, suggests that it should be about as secure as their browser in general. More if you exclude Flash and Java.
R.Mo
They should apologize to you for what, pray tell? For updating their *free* web browser more often than you'd like?
Rather than ranting, why don't you go here if the update schedule is keeping you up at night:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.htm
That people are commenting on firefox 19.
Since this is slashdot, I kind of expected everybody to be on firefox 20+ (Aurora channel) or atleast the Beta channel.
Why? It's a fucking web browser, not a fantastic new game. Not everybody regards updating software as their main pleasure in life.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it