Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Makes Latest Chrome Build Open PDFs By Default

Posted by timothy on from the open-it-use-dynamite-if-necessary dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google is changing the way its browser handles PDF files, starting with the Chrome Canary channel. Citing security concerns, the company wants Chrome to open PDF files by default, bypassing any third-party programs such as Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader."

15 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Great by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great. Another configuration change to manage on all our workstations.
    The Chrome PDF viewer is shit. So is the Firefox one. They're fine for viewing most basic PDFs, but anything more involved (forms, interactive PDFs, portfolios, etc.) and they both just shit the bed.

    1. Re:Great by LunaticTippy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I understand hating the built in viewers, but to me they are a blessing. There are so many things that are PDFs for no reason. I really appreciate a quick and dirty way to see PDFs, and with my usage it is good enough 90% of the time. For the interactive ones etc. I tend to recognize which ones aren't going to work so I just download the file. On unfamiliar systems I always grit my teeth when clicking a link causes a 20 second delay while Adobe Viewer lurches from the shadows and demands to be updated.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
    2. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Maybe PDFs are shit

    3. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just give me a prompt to save/open/cancel any day. I miss the good old days.

    4. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If a new feature is added by way of an update, it should prompt for its settings the first time it becomes relevant. So on the first click on a PDF the browser should prompt: "you can now view PDFs within the browser, enable / disbale this feature / let me try once and prompt me again." It shouldn't silently enable the feature and let the hapless user hunt in the settings for a way to disable it, that's just rude.

  2. How so very secure! by themushroom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And another example of some tools wanting to be the do-all where they weren't asked and don't belong.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
    1. Re:How so very secure! by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Back in reality, this will stop a large number of infections from occurring.

    2. Re:How so very secure! by girlintraining · · Score: 2, Insightful

      However ISO 32000-1 is a standard.

      Because a bunch of companies paid a fuckton to have it become a standard, yeah. Google up the history on that... a lot of money was handed out to get an ISO working group and get it stamped as a standard. It was bought and paid for by Adobe. So there's that.

      There's also the fact that PDFs don't belong in a browser anyway. It's an outgrowth of PCL, a language for printing documents out of the 90s. It's not multimedia, and every attempt to make it web-friendly is a bandaid that opens large numbers of vulnerabilities up.

      Don't put it in the browser. For the love of god don't put it in. Standard or no standard it's a shit technology.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  3. Of course! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Google don't want you to have options and they want to skim your PDFs for their data gathering business...
     
    So much for Google Chrome.

  4. "third-party programs"? by themushroom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    bypassing any third-party programs such as Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader

    Technically, Adobe Reader is the first-party program and Chrome is the third-party program for reading PDFs.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
  5. When I set a default by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I set a default for a file extension in the OS, I expect the browser to respect that setting. Both Firefox and Chrome are now "bad apples" in the desktop configuration arena. Shame on them both. I see no reason why their implementation would be any more secure than the applications I've already chosen.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:When I set a default by Dahan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So when you click a link to a JPG file, does it open in the browser, or does it open in the viewer configured for .jpg in your OS? I'd wager that for just about everyone, it opens in the browser. What's different about PDFs that you think they shouldn't do the same?

  6. Security Issues with Foxit? by jader3rd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've never heard of anyone having any security issues with Foxit. Plus, the top priority for Foxit is going to be a good PDF viewer, whereas that might not make top priority for a browser.

    1. Re:Security Issues with Foxit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/version_history.php

  7. Obligatory Zawinski's Law by feufeu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." Replace "mail" by "PDFs"...