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Why did Google not write their PDF Reader for Chrome in Javascript?
Google normally fully embraces web technologies. It is a bit of surprise then that the PDF viewing functionality in Chrome is implemented as a plugin rather than being written in Javascript.
Any ideas why they have taken this route?
- zzleeper 15y agoMy guess is: 1) Speed. JS may be too slow to quickly parse such a complicated file format. Remember that may PDFs may be very large in size 2) Complexity. This is the big one. PDFs are full of quirks that make html pale. Thus, it was smarter to just use Foxit's already tested codebase than start from zero.
- hoodoof 15y agoFirefox is bulding their PDF reader functionality using Javascript. I would have thought that Google would have the technical chops to do it without it being too slow.
- melling 15y agoWhich one is faster? One of the goals of Chrome is to run on older hardware. Also, if you're sticking with XP for a while longer, you'll need to move to Firefox or Chrome, if you want a modern browser. The fastest browser for all those legacy XP machines is Chrome.
- pvarangot 15y agoMaybe they didn't wrote it, as in they licensed the technology from someone else for some parts of it. But it's just a guess...
- maushu 15y agoYou wouldn't ask that if you checked the PDF File Format documentation. It's scary. Really really scary.
- anothertodd 15y agothey just want to route it to google docs? Hmm, well I think they just hate structure of PDF document.
- jdietrich 15y agoPareto. They bought in their PDF engine from Foxit. Their product is fast, lean, truly multiplatform and has countless man-years invested in dealing with bugs and quirks. Google are exceptionally good at identifying problems that matter. They invest heavily in the stuff that yields the greatest results. When there are still so many glaring problems in web browsing, implementing a PDF engine from scratch is wasted effort.