Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/11/firefox_beta_shows_pdfs_without_plugin/
Mozilla to Adobe: PDFs don't need no more steenking plugins
Firefox beta renders PDFs with HTML 5
Posted in Software, 11th January 2013 04:15 GMT
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Mozilla's come right out and said what plenty of people think about PDF-reading browser plugins: they're often woefully insecure, generally replicate things browsers can already do and rely on proprietary technology.
Mozilla's answer is HTML 5 allied with the pdf.js [1] project, which together allow a newly-released beta [2] of Firefox to display PDFs without a plugin.
The results, displayed below, aren't a radical variation from the interface presented by PDF plugins.
Look Ma: no plugins!
But as Mozilla points out in this blog post [3], “the PDF viewer is capable of running on many platforms (PC’s, tablet, mobile) and even different browsers.” The organisation is hopeful things will only get better as browsers' JavaScript-crunching prowess improves. ®