Google-chrome – Make Chrome always open PDFs itself

downloadgoogle-chromepdf

I'm looking for a way to make Google Chrome always open PDFs with its internal viewer when I click a link, as opposed to downloading it to the default location. It works with most URLs, but some servers set a special header to force the file to be downloaded ("Content-Disposition: attachment;", e.g. http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/46260.html).

What I want is the opposite of this question: Stop PDFs from displaying inside Google Chrome, or what is asked for here, but applied to Chrome: How to ignore “Content-Disposition: attachment” in Firefox

Btw., I'm running Chrome 8.0.552.0 dev on Ubuntu 10.4.

Best Answer

The "Redirector" answer was just what I was looking for, but that extension is no longer available. So I kept digging and found Modify Content-Type. It's working as I expected (PDFs open in the internal viewer despite Content-Disposition: attachment in the response headers) with a rule of:

URL Filter:       .*
Original Type:    application/.*pdf
Replacement Type: application/pdf
Disposition:      inline

Note well that this may expose you to cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, and you would be wise not to allow .* in the URL filter. Add to it only as needed.

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Google-chrome – Force file link to open as a preview in [new] tab (instead of downloading)

Who defines whether the file will be downloaded or opened is the site developer. Naturally the file is opened in the browser, but if the developer force the HTML header below, will always be downloaded.

There is no way to force. :(

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=fileToForceDownload.pdf");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", 12345);
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
Response.BinaryWrite(bytesOfFile);

To open in browser, developer must declare:

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=fileToOpen.pdf");
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";

The above was written in C# but its parameters are common to any language sites

Windows – Completed downloads freeze Windows

There are several ways Antivirus software may be scanning the file.

When it hits the disk, if the file is compressed scanning can take some time and cause a pause/hang.
Intercepting the web request and scanning the file before allowing it to complete. Will usually see items for the security software listed in the network connection properties.
A helper addon for the browser that scans the file before allowing the transfer to fully complete.

Turn off various scanning features, download the EICAR.COM test file from someplace to confirm then see if the hangs go away on larger files.

Best Answer

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Google-chrome – Force file link to open as a preview in [new] tab (instead of downloading)

Windows – Completed downloads freeze Windows

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