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I'm curious, why do people on HN warn about PDFs? The worst things I can imagine happening with PDFs are (1) you don't have any software that can read it (proba
by jamescostian 8y ago
I'm curious, why do people on HN warn about PDFs? The worst things I can imagine happening with PDFs are (1) you don't have any software that can read it (probably like .2% of HNers?) and (2) it could potentially have some malware (but the same could be said of a website)
- hermitdev 8y agoAdobe is not known for their security. PDF is also known to allow remote execution via PDF. Default reader on most systems being Adobe's reader, yeah, I'd avoid it. I know this is shifting as browsers incorporate readers, but the format is tarnished.
- geofft 8y agoBefore the advent of built-in PDF readers in browsers, it would often either trigger a download or launch an external program, which are kind of rude behaviors to spring on someone without notice. I still have this habit (though I'll just mention "(PDF)" in a parenthetical), and I'll certainly warn about autoplaying audio or an excessive amount of ads even if I expect a good fraction of readers to have browser configs/extensions to deal with those.
- pronoiac 8y agoThe mobile experience for PDFs is awful.
- anoncake 8y agoThe mobile experience for HTML/JS/CSS is awful too.