Ask HN: Why does Chrome on Android not open PDF files like Chrome on Windows?

4 points·metadat··8 comments

I've found it annoying enough that I avoid clicking PDF links, because they clutter up my Downloads folder.

Also, why does Chrome on ChromeOS not open PDFs? It's irritating not only because of the downloads folder, but also because it usually makes more sense to have a PDF in a tab, rather then its own window. For example, if an HN submission is a PDF, I want to open both the PDF and the comments in new tabs, and have those tabs next to each other.

Perhaps it is because Android Chrome has no extension support, not even pdfium.

But why are these extensions omitted?

I've noticed my iOS device browsers handle PDFs just fine. Struggling to understand why Chrome on Android is crippled.

By not including extensions in Android Chrome, they eliminated Ad blockers.

same way chrome on android does not support extensions, they are entirely different underneath.

firefox on android allows extensions but firefox on ios doesnt.

Probably to keep the Chrome download size down - pdfium is a pretty sizeable library.

PDF viewer (as default handler) is part of Google Drive app and was probably deemed redundant to add it to Chrome.

This is a good thing. The first thing i do on Win/Linux is to disable this crappy behaviour.

maybe because pdf vulnerabilities are found so often that it would unleash one zero day a month

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