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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."

29 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: 3, Insightful

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

    3. Re:Great by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why are we even holding onto PDFs, anyways?

      I myself tend to like PDFs for print materials because it's pretty much the only format that is guaranteed to scale exactly as shown. When I scan documents, or create documents that are primarily going to be used in print form, it's pretty much a given that they'll always be PDF's.

      For anything else though they're annoying.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    4. Re:Great by mbkennel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      | Because we love formats which are impossible to convert into any other format; which require complicated, ugly tools to perform even basic formatting,

      This is a feature, not a bug. It's not just a feature, it is THE feature.

      I'm very serious. Plenty of times an 'editable' PowerPoint is substantially garbled when it's opened up on a different version, or some Office configuration changed, or it's on somebody else's installation or it's 3 years old, or it needed an equation plugin, or the fonts are whatever...

      If I have an important presentation---"save as PDF" is essential. I want to be able to give away (and use) poorly-editable copies which Microsoft programs will NOT do anything to.

      That is an essential feature.

      | and because we desperately need a format which essentially displays graphics and text to require weekly updates to remove the latest batch of exploits.

      PDF isn't the problem. Adobe is that problem. MacOS and other software display PDF fine.

    5. Re:Great by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Agreed, I actually PREFER to have Chrome open a pdf, because its one less virus ridden file I have to deal with.
      I'm still given the option of saving it if I want. Chrome itself seems to recognize which PDFs it can't handle, and prompts for download.
      (but those are PRECISELY the ones you have to worry about the most. )

      I really don't understand why this is news, since Chrome has been doing this for years now.
      (At least since 2010 according to TFA).

      Maybe they will enhance it enough such that we don't need to run any Adobe software. With Adobe dropping linux support
      all together, there are no fully capable alternatives.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    6. 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.

    7. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      | Because we love formats which are impossible to convert into any other format; which require complicated, ugly tools to perform even basic formatting,

      This is a feature, not a bug. It's not just a feature, it is THE feature

      This. I was doing literal rocket science (a project for the ISS) and Solidworks document printing was incessantly moving things around (typically on top of something else, making both notations illegible). I printed always to PDF, fixed the errors in PDF, and then submitted *that* paper to the controlling authority (JAXA, in this case). I couldn't trust Solidworks to print what it said it would. I could trust PDF.

      AC

    8. Re:Great by HJED · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't know about the chrome one, but in Firefox the inbuilt PDF viewer correctly displays less than half the pdfs I open. This is primarily due to its terrible Unicode support (worse than slashdot), but also due to failures in displaying pretty much anything that isn't text.

      --
      null
    9. Re:Great by djdanlib · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yup, especially restaurant menus, which are *always* in PDF. It's frustrating when you're on mobile and just want to see the menu before you commit a large party with diverse dietary restrictions to going somewhere.

    10. Re:Great by houghi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The reason is that they use Word to make their PDFs to print them out. This saves time. Just upload the one you used for printing.

      To me it seems if you can not be bothered about the presentation on a website, will you bother with details in your kitchen?

      Talking resyaurant websites. It seems that especially high end restaurants have terrible websites. Just two examples of high end restaurants:
      http://www.thefatduck.co.uk/
      http://www.cellercanroca.com/index.htm
      As great as their food is, as lousy is their website. Seriously: what were they thinking? If they treat the food as they treat their website, McD should be the highest quality food.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would prefer if the browser stick to rendering only what the standards tell it to: CSS, HTML, PNG, JPEG, GIF... these are all standards. "Adobe PDF" is not.

      However ISO 32000-1 is a standard.

      Firefox is the emacs of browsers. Chrome is supposed to be the vi. Stop trying to make vi into Emacs!

      *backs away slowly*

    2. Re:How so very secure! by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  3. I'm OK with that... by tibit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On older laptops - those that reasonably work well only with XP, I not only install Chrome as the best performing browser, but I also advise people to use it to view PDFs. Note that viewing a PDFs is very different than filling it out etc. A viewer needs to be simple and well performing, and in my experience, even on 10+ year old hardware, Chrome shines there. So, for one, I do welcome this change.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  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.
    1. Re:"third-party programs"? by Ksevio · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think it means "third-party" in relation to Chrome, not PDFs

  5. hell, a complete OS os smaller than most PDFs by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For that matter QNX, a complete graphical OS including essential programs like a web browser and even a web server is a couple MB - smaller than many odd DOCUMENTS.

    I wonder how blazingly fast a 4MB OS is on 4GHz machine with GBs of RAM. The CPU could process the entire OS in less than a millisecond.

    1. Re:hell, a complete OS os smaller than most PDFs by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wonder how blazingly fast a 4MB OS is on 4GHz machine with GBs of RAM.

      No matter. Adobe will find a way to bring the system to its knees.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  6. Re:Data usage & Battery life by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think you may have posted on the wrong thread - Google is not (yet) the government ;)

    --
    William George
  7. Sunnary unclear by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. It will NOT change the way the system handles PDF files.
    2. It has NOTHING to do with how the browser views PDF files on the web (the Chrome PDF viewer is already the default).
    3. It only affects how Chrome handles when you choose to open a downloaded PDF file.

    Likely this was done to be consistent. Any security the Chrome PDF viewer could offer could be easily bypassed by an attacker forcing the file to download. If the user clicks it, it opens in the system PDF viewer.

    I believe Adobe Reader has its own sandbox so this might seem a bit weird... but at least one thing Chrome has going for it that Reader has not is that Chrome is more likely to be up-to-date (I forget how Reader updates itself, if it does at all) AND it pulls the latest Chrome PDF plugin with it.

  8. 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?

  9. 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.

  10. party in your pants by themushroom · · Score: 5, Funny

    And you're the only one who came.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
  11. Simple as that by lesincompetent · · Score: 5, Informative

    chrome://plugins/
    Chrome PDF Viewer --> Disable.

  12. 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"...

  13. Re:So very much this. by Zenin · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's completely opposite of my experience.

    On my not-so-hot computer I regularly open very complex, 400+ page PDFs (music scores mostly). We're talking 30MB w/o any imbedded images, just pure intensive processing instructions.

    Chrome, from a total standstill (the process not even running yet), takes just slightly longer then it takes me to blink to start, load the PDF, and render. It's an order of magnitude faster in every way then every other PDF viewer I've tried, and I've tried quite a few.

    It lacks features (PDF bookmarks, etc), but render speed is fantastic.

    --
    My /. uid is better then your /. uid
  14. Re:adobe reader. by mysidia · · Score: 4, Informative

    how can a document renderer, basically a postscript web browser with ALL THE FUNCTIONS REMOVED, be bigger than an virtual computer in your computer?

    Ah.... what you are missing is clear now. You missed the point that a PDF viewer is a virtual computer in your computer.

    Among other things.... PDFs can contain scripts and various executable bits. What do you think the major source of security issues in PDF is?