Firefox 19 Launches With Built-In PDF Viewer 288
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla on Tuesday officially launched Firefox 19 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The improvements include a built-in PDF viewer on the desktop and theme support as well as lower CPU requirements on Google's mobile platform. You can see the official changelogs here: desktop and Android."
Not new, and do not want (Score:4, Insightful)
New? That went in a few Firefox versions back, I think at Firefox 16. I turned it off, since I use Sumatra PDF (which is dumb, but safe).
In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they serious? A built in PDF reader, and this is only the start of things. Meanwhile there are Mozilla bugs that are over half a decade old.
This constant bloat of software, where a program eventually gets filled with so many features that it might as well be Ann entire OS, is one of the most dangerous diseases in the tech world. The irony is that Firefox was originally a lightweight answer to the entire Mozilla suite, because it had grown too bloated.
Every platform out there already has a PDF reader. My operating system has a PDF renderer built in. It works great. Why jam another one in the browser? They're just increasing the attack surface, and if a vulnerability in the PDF format were to crop up now I have to worry about getting patches for yet another thing here.
Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs! (Score:5, Insightful)
The PDF reader in Firefox is actually implemented in JavaScript. It's quite an achievement!
It doesn't bloat the software much; it's just a .js file that gets loaded when needed. I personally think this is the RIGHT way to do it; external binary plugins are much more susceptible to security problems than simply using the already existing JavaScript engine, which has been time tested to be secure.
Worry not, Firefox is in good hands.
Re:Still exists? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. it's got adblockplus
2. it's the only browser left that isn't directly targeted at marketing interests over my privacy (you worry about holes, but then trust google??)
3. a useful library of plugins. sure other browsers have this now, but not like firefox.
does that excuse the performance issues? hell no.
Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate PDF readers, embedding suckssssss (Score:5, Insightful)
Just let me damn well download the files, never open in a tab and render it.
Yes I know you can set this option but I use 3 damned PC's - and FF updates regularly (or dies and I need to do a clean profile) I'm sick of adjusting things to make things work properly.
Like the ridiculous copy and paste http:/// [http] bug - they strip it from the URL (breaking bloody standards) and I copy and paste it elsewhere. 95% of the time it auto-adds the http:/// [http] as it should, however 5% of the time it doesn't and it's frustrating (because it should never be removed in the damned first place!)
Re:Still exists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox uses less memory than Chrome these days.
That's not a good thing. For example Firefox doesn't decode images until they are displayed to reduce memory consumption. The result is that it judders as you scroll and switching tabs introduces a noticeable delay.
My laptop has 4GB of RAM. My desktop has 16GB RAM. Even the graphics card has 3GB. I bought lots of RAM because I want performance, not pointless memory saving that slows me down. Memory benchmarks are not a good way to evaluate a browser.
Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Firefox's releases is they keep screwing with the UI. Little things here and there - like day I suddenly found muscle memory broken because the awesomebar stopped autocompleting full URLs and only did domains? (It's fine for the most part, but if you have URLs that are fairly deep... or say to get directly to a forum...).
If Mozilla updated firefox like chrome - where they don't mess with UI things at all (or default them to "off" for upgrade installs so it behaves exactly the same as it did pre-update) then a lot less people would care. But they don't. I don't care what version Chrome is at because it works the same today as it did yesterday. But every new update to Firefox brings trepidatoin in the form "what did they screw with now? And can I disable it?"
Ars Technica periodically runs browser wars charts [arstechnica.com] that show how each version of a browser is adopted. Consistently while a large number of people update, a significant number of people don't, much more than Chrome.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they giving everyone a leg up by breaking all the add-ons?
Didn't break any of the 24 I have installed. YMMV, of course.
Re:What about Save As PDF (Score:4, Insightful)
+1
I've been using PDFCreator for years now.
Re:Still exists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Biggest annoyance keeping me from using Chrome more is the lack of a clear address bar plug-in. Linux has this wonderful feature of being able to highlight something then middle clicking to past it. Takes a couple of clicks away from a cut-n-paste action and is real easy to do while surfing around. Without a way to clear the address bar, this is useless. I've been using Linux for over 15 years, don't remember when it was introduced but I've become so accustomed to it, I really can't do without it.
Re:Its quite amusing..... (Score:4, Insightful)
That people are commenting on firefox 19.
Since this is slashdot, I kind of expected everybody to be on firefox 20+ (Aurora channel) or atleast the Beta channel.
Why? It's a fucking web browser, not a fantastic new game. Not everybody regards updating software as their main pleasure in life.