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Full PDF support is a security nightmare[1], and PDF supports so much more than a simple reading program should need, which results in it being bloated, buggy,
by k3n 14y ago
Full PDF support is a security nightmare[1], and PDF supports so much more than a simple reading program should need, which results in it being bloated, buggy, and drastically increases the surface area for attacks.
1. http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=pdf http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=pdf
- rwallace 14y agoYes but there's no requirement that any particular PDF reader implement all the extra crap.
- k3n 14y agoTrue, but there's no delineation provided in the PDF files so as to ascertain which files require which features (via file extension or whatever), and so it might be impossible to tell if your particular reader supports all of the features provided by the PDF file. The better readers will tell you that some features of the current document aren't supported, while others simply won't render correctly at all, or worse, will just crash the application. You also end up with users trying to open some dynamic form PDF with scripting and whatnot enabled, and of course your portable device balks because it doesn't support it, so now it gets kicked back to the device MFG because the PDF reader is "broken".
- pdfsage 14y agoHTML/EPUB as the format for eBooks open you up to every single one of those problems - and more! HTML/EPUB supports forms, scripting (try to find a web page w/o any JS), audio, video, 3D and more.