I am troubleshooting a problem with opening PDFs from websites so I uninstalled Adobe Reader. Out of curiosity I checked whether I could still open PDFs from websites (here is a random example). Surprisingly I could still open PDFs from both Chrome (my preferred browser) and Internet Explorer. I believe IE is using Edge to open the PDFs but the PDF interface looks different in Chrome, so it might be another application. Unfortunately I can't uninstall Edge to check. How can I figure out what application Chrome is using to open PDFs from websites?
Google-chrome – If I have uninstalled Adobe Reader, but I can still open PDFs in Chrome, what application am I using
google-chromepdf
Related Solutions
This problem is described and addressed in the Adobe Forums here:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2604875?tstart=0
"Steve Ragan's article in The Tech Herald gives you the correct information.
Essentially, you must install Acrobat Reader (AR) version 9.3 and then IMMEDIATELY open AR and Check for Updates in the Help Menu. Your should get an offer to update to: Adobe Reader 9.3.1 (CPSID_50570). Download and install this update. I did so and now am able to easily and very quickly open any PDFs from within the website where I am working.
Success at last!! Hurrah!"
Hope this solves your issue.
FYI for others: if you're okay with the Chrome PDF viewer, but want only downloaded PDFs to open in your external PDF viewer (Adobe Acrobat, Foxit Reader, etc.), you don't need to disable the Chrome PDF Viewer.
Always open PDFs using your system's viewer
Simply click the arrow next to a PDF download and select the option to use the system viewer.
Turn off auto-open of PDFs in the system viewer
UPDATE 6/7/2017
As of Chrome version 59, the option below doesn't exist in Settings. I'll leave these instructions, because if they ever add it back it'll probably be in the same place.
- Click on the
Chrome Menuicon
- Click on
- Scroll down and click
- Scroll down to Downloads. If you have enabled any file types to open using the system viewer, you'll see a button to Clear auto-opening settings. Clicking this will reset the settings for all file types.
More info
Relevant SuperUser discussion here: How to automatically open "saved" pdfs in system viewer on chrome?
Best Answer
Chrome itself is the application that is viewing the PDFs.
Windows 10 Edge can also open PDFs directly. Please note, IE is an older, separate application from Edge. If your users start in IE, they will not be able to open PDFs directly in IE unless they have Adobe plugin installed.
Firefox is able to view PDFs without a plugin : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-pdf-files-firefox .
Some websites (bank websites in my experience) will force a download rather than allowing it to be opened in the same browser. In Firefox, I was able to sometimes change the behavior by changing the MIME settings, but it didn't work consistently. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-firefox-behavior-when-open-file