Mozilla to Add Built-in PDF Viewer to Firefox

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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In about three months, give or take, the next innovation for Firefox will be the inclusion of a PDF reader freeing users from the perils of the Adobe reader. The point here is not to push a home-grown PDF reader on Firefox users; it’s more about insuring the security of the browser.

By shunning the Reader plug-in, a browser sidesteps the vulnerabilities that come with the Adobe software.
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Yay, one less plugin to worry about being installed in the browser now. Thank you Firefox.

Now, if only there was an alternative to Flash that can run Flash... Doubtful we'll ever see it but here's to hoping.
 
octoberasian said:
Now, if only there was an alternative to Flash that can run Flash... Doubtful we'll ever see it but here's to hoping.
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Really! Flash would be dying more rapidly if google wasn't being so moronic about h264/x264 <video> tag support. That decision gave Flash a few solid extra years of life.
 
pxc said:
Really! Flash would be dying more rapidly if google wasn't being so moronic about h264/x264 <video> tag support. That decision gave Flash a few solid extra years of life.
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Flash is more than just about video.
 
I meant for a more efficient Flash plugin.

Flash is so dominant on websites that it kills memory. (Look at my last post in the General Software thread on Firefox 5. Plugin container.exe is 600+ MB with Flash open on 6 websites.)

I wouldn't mind a more efficient active and dynamic animations like what I've seen done with HTML5.

However, until HTML5 overtakes Flash and I hope soon, browsers need a more efficient AND secure Flash plugin because whatever Adobe's monkeys did, it's not working quite that well.
 
Hmm, can FF legally do this though? The way software patents work, I'm sure Adobe has pages of patents that deal with tiny things like "opening PDFs" that might be infringed upon.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Hmm, can FF legally do this though? The way software patents work, I'm sure Adobe has pages of patents that deal with tiny things like "opening PDFs" that might be infringed upon.
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Chrome already does it. It opens online PDF files within the browser, you can even associate the PDF extension with chrome and open local PDF files.
 
A PDF viewer using Javascript? That doesn't sound safe at all. May I remind everyone that the majority of security vulnerabilities in all browsers stem from Javascript.
 
heatlesssun said:
Flash is more than just about video.
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I know. But h264/x264 is the most popular web video streaming format and is not likely to change any time soon.

Many features of Flash can be replaced by HTML5 canvas + JS in the near to long term future, but yanking h264/x264 support puts that video format compatibility back to a plug in... which for most users will be Flash. Google isn't alone. Mozilla and Opera of course are also not supporting h264/x264. Thankfully the ubiquitous Flash is available to save the day (and live another day)!

So there's Ogg Theora that most users don't want and Web-M, whose sole patent holder is credited for benevolence. Or there's Flash to support the vast majority of embedded web video.
 
niconx said:
A PDF viewer using Javascript? That doesn't sound safe at all. May I remind everyone that the majority of security vulnerabilities in all browsers stem from Javascript.
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your good though, firefox doesn't have secuity flaws so you don't need to worry about that.
 
No thanks. I hate viewing PDFs in the browser. I have .pdf set to always download.
 
Exavior said:
your good though, firefox doesn't have secuity flaws so you don't need to worry about that.
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it has flaws from time to time, but like chrome they are too a bit fast about patching things up. (unless that was sarcasm, then ignore my post :D ).

anyway, for quick views and small pdfs, the built in viewer of chrome works well, for large files I just download the pdf. its not that Adobe Reader is that crappy, its just has too many features for their browser based reader, if Adobe wants to lessen their security problems. they should limit the number of features on the integrated plugin for browsers, keep it simple or like a preview-only version, this is what chrome has been doing, and im guessing this is what firefox will do to keep things light.
 
Maximus825 said:
No thanks. I hate viewing PDFs in the browser. I have .pdf set to always download.
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Ditto. I'd rather see the progress bar than wonder for a couple minutes whether my browser froze or some idiot posted a 25mb PDF without telling anyone.

Hint Adobe: implement a fucking progress bar for browser based viewers like you do for your standalones.
 
Azhar said:
Hint Adobe: implement a fucking progress bar for browser based viewers like you do for your standalones.
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I get a progress bar while downloading a pdf in a browser. It's gray and has a blue progress bar and has been that way for many months. The latest update from the past week added x bytes of y downloaded text to the progress bar. :p
 
pxc said:
I get a progress bar while downloading a pdf in a browser. It's gray and has a blue progress bar and has been that way for many months. The latest update from the past week added x bytes of y downloaded text to the progress bar. :p
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Must be an Acrobat Reader X feature then. I haven't tried that version yet. 9 and below doesn't have progress bar. Your browser just freezes until the PDF's ready to load. That got old fast.
 
So no more adobe, but what about the security vulnerbilities of the pdf built in.
 
If Microsoft did this they'd be sued from one side of the universe to the other...
 
Cobalt35 said:
If Microsoft did this they'd be sued from one side of the universe to the other...
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LOL, MS did have to pull PDF support from Office 2007 under legal threat from Adobe. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/158447/microsoft_pull_pdf_support_from_office_2007/

Microsoft has decided to delete from its next version of Office an automatic way to save documents in PDF after Adobe Systems threatened to take legal action.
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Adobe didn't want MS to offer a no-cost PDF alternative for Office, but to charge for the feature separately instead. Yes, this is the reasonable world we live in now. ;)
 
dyzophoria said:
it has flaws from time to time, but like chrome they are too a bit fast about patching things up. (unless that was sarcasm, then ignore my post :D ).

anyway, for quick views and small pdfs, the built in viewer of chrome works well, for large files I just download the pdf. its not that Adobe Reader is that crappy, its just has too many features for their browser based reader, if Adobe wants to lessen their security problems. they should limit the number of features on the integrated plugin for browsers, keep it simple or like a preview-only version, this is what chrome has been doing, and im guessing this is what firefox will do to keep things light.
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Yes that was sarcasm
 
I always thought FoxIt was the official PDF reader of Firefox :p

I kid, I kid. As long as it isn't forced on us to use, I'm all for it. I'm quite content with the Foxit integration. Though oddly it only integrates with Firefox. Not Aurora or Nightly. So perhaps this would be nice to have for using a pre-release version of the browser.
 
ml_paladin888 said:
bleh, more bloat
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You realize Firefox has the least amount of "bloat" out of any browser in existence, right?

For christ's sakes, you want to look at "bloat" (or at least your definition of it, since bloat = built-in features) look at Opera or Chrome.
 
pxc said:
Adobe didn't want MS to offer a no-cost PDF alternative for Office, but to charge for the feature separately instead. Yes, this is the reasonable world we live in now. ;)
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Adobe didn't want MS to adopt their standard natively into Office and pollute it with proprietary code. I don't think that's an unreasonable position.
 
mope54 said:
Adobe didn't want MS to adopt their standard natively into Office and pollute it with proprietary code. I don't think that's an unreasonable position.
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It's kind of hard to "pollute" PDF when much of it is already considered an ISO standard.
 
chrome has this already! they should sue mozilla for stealing their idea
 
Solidstate89 said:
It's kind of hard to "pollute" PDF when much of it is already considered an ISO standard.
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I don't understand your logic in thinking those two are mutually exclusive. I also don't understand how you conflate proprietary code within the document and the purpose or output of the document.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Hmm, can FF legally do this though? The way software patents work, I'm sure Adobe has pages of patents that deal with tiny things like "opening PDFs" that might be infringed upon.
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PDF is a open standard. All they really have to do is make sure they meet a ISO standard and they are good. I wish they would do the same to Flash, but the only reason they did it with PDF was because they were afraid Microsoft was about to kill it with XPS.
 
mope54 said:
I don't understand your logic in thinking those two are mutually exclusive. I also don't understand how you conflate proprietary code within the document and the purpose or output of the document.
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They're mutually exclusive because unless the ISO board permits changes, Microsoft couldn't do anything to the PDF standard. Hell, Adobe who created the PDF format has pretty much no control over their format anymore BECAUSE it's an been adopted as an ISO standard.
 
I don't like pdf opening in my browser anyway and disable pdf plugin so that it is forced to download to my PC instead so FF better have an easy way to disable it opening in the browser automatically.
 
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