Live data from Hacker News

Firefox introduces PDF viewer

blog.mozilla.org

121–130 of 200 posts

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#121

If you want to try PDF.js from your current browser, here's a demo: http://mozilla.github.com/pdf.js/web/viewer.html I wonder what's keeping this so ugly in Chrome. Also, does anyone know if printing is intended to work? It doesn't appear to have the pagination right, again at least on Chrome.

This is really impressive. I tried in both my FF 18 and Chromium, it seems to work fine in both, although I prefer the font rendering in Firefox. This truly is an amazing use of JS.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#122
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has nothing to do with anything. If you're just having a dick measuring contest, Google has contributed a ton to the open source community. Google also provides nearly 100% of funding for Mozilla.

I am not against your main point but I am sure that Microsoft will provide at least 110% of funding if Google pulled their "funding".

If Microsoft were willing to provide pay as much or more, why aren't they doing it already to make Bing the default search engine?

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#123
post #45
post #9

It's worth pointing out this is done in pure Javascript , and works by compiling PDF functions to equivalent Javascript functions which are then visible to Firefox's JIT. Despite being only around a year old, it still manages to render the majority of PDFs thrown at it (it's been my primary paper reader for the past 6 months or so). As for missing features like some complex gradients, I can't say I've missed them, ex…

> While Mozilla are pumping out stellar designs like this, Google are pushing crap like Native Client and their proprietary, binary-only Foxit Reader solution instead, complete with the hundreds of thousands of LOC of insecure C this entails. Rock on, Mozilla! Why are you dumping on Google? Their browser has been able to handle PDFs for years (including forms!).

The Chrome PDF Viewer is not really useful. There is no table of contents. You can't jump to specific pages. And so on. It is also closed source.

I wish Google would rather abandon their current viewer and start contributing/using pdf.js.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#124
post #13
post #9

It's worth pointing out this is done in pure Javascript , and works by compiling PDF functions to equivalent Javascript functions which are then visible to Firefox's JIT. Despite being only around a year old, it still manages to render the majority of PDFs thrown at it (it's been my primary paper reader for the past 6 months or so). As for missing features like some complex gradients, I can't say I've missed them, ex…

Please take your time machine and go release PDF.js in early 2010. With good performance on the hardware and Javascript VMs of early 2010. Then I'll grant you the criticism of Chrome's PDF viewer. Otherwise, trolling... fact is, Chrome is the browser that liberated the world from Acrobat Reader. PDF.js is awesome and it may be the way to go, but as of today Chrome's viewer is still much better -- please try http://ww…

Chrome's PDF viewer lacks the basic features one expects from a PDF viewer. It doesn't make sense to abandon the concept of pages or not support ToC. Those things are essential in PDFs. pdf.js handles all of those things. And there were browsers being able to display PDF before Chrome. KDE's Konqueror could simply load KPDF and Safari had Preview.app embedded.

I wish Google would abandon their viewer (which is closed source btw) and rather start using and contributing to pdf.js.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#125
post #6

Love it, but unlike Chrome's embedded PDF reader, it can't "stream" PDFs (a dealbreaker for people viewing media-heavy PDFs on slower connections)

That's interesting, because PDFs are an inherently un-streamable format. It requires seeking within the file to work (hence why command line PDF tools can't take STDIN for the PDF file - or they fake it by copying to a temp file first). I wonder how google got around that problem.

If I remember correctly the PDF Spec says the files should be read backwards. The object table is at the end of the file.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#126

Dumb question: What's to stop Chrome from eventually adopting PDF.js? Personally, I see that as the future. Its open source, its "good enough", and Google doesn't have to license the pdf viewer anymore. Also it's a big coup against Adobe, when everyone with firefox and chrome can pretty much uninstall your Adobe Reader software. I haven't even mentioned shrinking the market on 3rd party PDF viewers.

There is already a Chromium plugin for pdf.js available. I hope Google starts using pdf.js so far it's better than the Chrome pdf viewer except for the startup time.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#127
post #76
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be sure, Safari is invoking a system level PDF reader to handle inline PDFs. That's what gets you that silky performance and nice rendering. When you pop the PDF out, it then gets passed to the full Preview.app.

>> To be sure, Safari is invoking a system level PDF reader to handle inline PDFs. That's what gets you that silky performance and nice rendering. Which, IMO, is the way it should be, and not just for PDFs. I'm impressed by the fact that Mozilla implemented a capable PDF reader in JavaScript, but I won't be using it. Firefox and Chrome are both trying too hard to duplicate everything my OS already provides: their own…

The main problem I see with that is security. PDF is a huge attack surface, reducing that to the already existing and well tested javascript surface is a huge win. Ideally (in my mind) every browser will come to use Mozilla's pdf implementation.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not against your main point but I am sure that Microsoft will provide at least 110% of funding if Google pulled their "funding".

If Microsoft were willing to provide pay as much or more, why aren't they doing it already to make Bing the default search engine?

Perhaps they had made an offer. We never would know.

We don't even know the details of the Mozilla-Google deal. For all the openness that Google and Mozilla appear to proffer, the agreement between them is a secret.

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#129
post #46

...and it displays your visited sites in a grand panorama on the canvas in a new tab, despite having asked for always private browsing. It could be a regression of both the browser, and the unit test, which isn't such a good news.

The visited sites view is possible to disable (either under settings, or, at the very least, about:config + search newtabpage (or something along those lines, I can neither remember or test it)), and there is a small symbol in the top right corner that hides the site display.

(Admittedly none of those solve the underlying problem of history being preserved.)

Re: Firefox introduces PDF viewer

#130
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... from there comes most infections on windows PCs running chrome.

Actually, that would be Java.

Source? I don't believe this since so many levels of confirmation is required. I think the biggest source is the simple links to "KimKSexTape.jpg.exe".
Post reply on HN