Los Angeles — Four and a half months ago, global search engine leader Google disclosed that it was developing an “integrated PDF viewing experience” for Chrome. Now, the Google Chrome 8.0.552.28 Beta has finally been released with an integrated support for viewing PDF documents without leaving the browser.
Conventionally, PDF files were downloaded and opened in an appropriate application, or a browser plug-in was used to display them. More recently, browsers such as Safari have provided integrated PDF support, and that is the direction Chrome is taking.
There is plenty to prize in the new beta and, if you have been using Chrome 7 until now, it is a worthwhile update. For instance, the beta channel represents a step forward versus the developer channel, anyway.
Although there are presumably some features left to iron out, it sounds like Google has done a nice job of designing the viewer. Along with the new features which have already been available in the dev channel, Chrome 8 is the first beta to come with the built-in PDF viewer the team has been working on.
Despite Google’s powerful release scheduled for Chrome — a new release is pushed every six weeks — the fine tuning phase, i.e. bug fixing, of the Chrome 8 beta actually lasted several weeks.
“To open a PDF document, you would normally need to install additional software or browser plug-in in order to view it in a web browser. With the integrated Chrome PDF viewer now available in Chrome’s beta, you can open a PDF document in Chrome without installing additional software,” John Abd-El-Malek, Software Engineer at Google, wrote.
“The PDF document will load as quickly and seamlessly as a normal web page in the browser. Just like we do with web pages viewed in Chrome, we have built in an additional layer of security called the ‘sandbox’ around the Chrome PDF viewer to help protect you from malware and security attacks that are targeted at PDF files.” he explained.
It is not surprising that Google has chosen to sandbox PDFs – PDf and other media files have been under heavy scrutiny by those looking for vulnerabilities in popular software. Google, after previously locking down the browser through the use of virtualized tabs. Each tab process is “sandboxed,” or isolated from each other as well as the OS, theoretically preventing a PDF exploit or malware from infecting the PC.
While the beta release was most likely ready, Google waited for a Flash Player security fix update, still due later today. Google Chrome 8 beta comes bundled with the latest Flash Player 10.1.103.19.
Finally, the latest update also addressed a dozen or so vulnerabilities, which addressed bugs that either compromised information or contained code that bypassed the sandbox capabilities. Dev users have had a chance to play with the integrated PDF viewer for a few months now.
So, sooner rather than later, it seems that normal Chrome users will get the opportunity to open legal documents, corporate reports, and all other sorts of stuff with a minimum of hassle. And, unlike the bundled Flash Player, which is just a repackage version of the official Adobe release, the Chrome PDF viewer is built in-house. Chrome may find new favor with businesspeople as a result.
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Google Chrome for Linux is available for download here.
Google Chrome for Mac is available for download here.