Closed Bug 1064390 Opened 10 years ago Closed 10 years ago

DO NOT associate *.pdf with Firefox

Categories

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Installer
Platform:
x86
Windows 7
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: tomer, Unassigned)

Details

Currently when installing Firefox on Windows, it sets Firefox is default file handler for PDF documents, although Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed on the computer. Even worse, it do so without setting Acrobat Reader as an optional file handler for the "open with" item on Windows Explorer context menu.

I am not using Windows on my computer myself, but I find myself installing Firefox daily on public computers that does restore to its previous state on every shutdown. I am not sure if it does reproduce for everyone or not, but it could be caused because I don't have administrative privileges on these machines which are controlled by a Group Policy, and the installer may be behaving differently than with regular installation with administration privileges enabled. 

Steps to reproduce:
a. Save a PDF document on the desktop. Make sure it has the Adobe Reader icon and is opened successfully using Adobe Reader. 
b. Launch Firefox stub installer and complete the installation.
c. Watch for the PDF document you kept on the desktop – icon changes to Firefox document icon, file is open by Firefox pdf.js and not Adobe Reader.
Will be fixed by bug 1049521
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Personally I agree with closing this in favour of being less aggressive with our associations.

Some arguments for not wanting us to take PDF even when there is no default viewer was mentioned here:
(In reply to Mike Kaply (:mkaply) from comment #23)
> Because Firefox is a web browser. It's not a PDF viewer.

To me I don't understand the big negative of taking a format we can read in the absence of any other handler.  There are perhaps some good points though, but I haven't heard them yet.

To me personally, a PDF document is just like any other resource on the web though.
And the true root of these negative feelings should perhaps be put into us not providing PDF viewing at all in our web browser (which I also disagree with).
For half of the pdfs that I tested, it is so slow that it is a bad experience. You want Firefox being known as fast browser, but implant such a slowdown.

If you want to stop pdf from spreading trojans, why not refuse to call Adobe Reader when it is outdated, or when it has known vulnerabilities. Like with Java. Works great.

I see no reason to rewrite a pdf viewer from scratch. Great achievement, but please not default in the browser, when in most cases another viewer is installed that it a lot better. Why can it not be an optional addon? Then make it so great that people want to use it, rather than making them use it.

Regarding "we can": It is often better to let something fail, than to let it work in a possibly wrong way. When something fails, this is obvious, and users shall look for a fix. If it appears to work, albeit wrongly, this is less obvious, and can in this case cause people to miss important info. PDF is meant to be a standard with guarantee that it displays everywhere exactly the same. If a part of the users have a broken pdf viewer, the standard looses this value, with no replacement in sight.
--- Comment #30 from Jim Mathies [:jimm] <jmathies@mozilla.com> 2014-09-12 17:04:39 PDT ---
(In reply to Mike Kaply (:mkaply) from comment #14)
>> Can we please just not take over PDF? It's pretty presumptuous of us to take
>> PDF viewing.

>Why? I think we should place ourselves on even footing with any other
>application that can render pdf.

If were on par with them, maybe. Our PDF viewer is quite slow and the printing is pretty bad.
Note: I discussed with bsmedberg not associating Firefox with pdf when there are no associations for pdf and he also wants to associate Firefox with pdf when there are no associations for pdf.
Resolution: DUPLICATE → WONTFIX
(In reply to Charles from bug 1049521 comment #34)
> (In reply to Jim Mathies [:jimm] from comment #30)
> > (In reply to Mike Kaply (:mkaply) from comment #14)
> > > Can we please just not take over PDF? It's pretty presumptuous of us to take
> > > PDF viewing.
> > 
> > Why? I think we should place ourselves on even footing with any other
> > application that can render pdf.
> 
> I'll say it again.
> 
> When Firefox can render PDFs reasonably well, without crashing the browser
> or bringinig it to its knees, AND can then also PRINT them without lots of
> problems (visual as well as performance), then you might at least have half
> a leg to stand on.
> 
> As it stands, it is the worst PDF renderer I have ever seen, bar none, and
> the presumptuousness being vocalized here is staggering.
> 
> LEAVE MY FILE ASSOCIATIONS ALONE.
If there is a file association it will be left alone after bug 1049521 is landed.
Specifically, if you have a file association it won't be changed, if you do not it will be added, if you install an app to handle that type of file it will take it.
For me, the problem is that this means I have to make sure I install Adobe Reader before I install Firefox.  If I do it the wrong way around, PDF files open in the wrong application and are shown in Explorer as HTML files.  Even worse, Adobe Creative Cloud offline help doesn't work at all, because Firefox interprets the request to open c:/Users/Public/.../myhelpfile.pdf in a strange way and winds up doing a Google search.

That sort of backwards dependency is really awkward to document and keep track of.

On the other hand, Firefox *should* IMO be adding itself to OpenWith even if there is an existing PDF viewer, which it currently doesn't.
For reference, for those as confused as I was last week: if Firefox 34 is installed before Adobe Reader, Firefox will create a .pdf association in HKEY_CURRENT_USER.  However, when Adobe Reader is installed, this association is *moved* to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and also modified.  (Adobe Reader 10; I haven't tested 11 yet.)

Prior to installing Adobe Reader, "assoc .pdf" will say that no association exists.  After the move, it will show .pdf associated with the FirefoxHTML file type.

So part of the problem is that Adobe Reader is behaving oddly.
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