Google adds PDF viewer to Chrome beta

Google has integrated a PDF viewer into the beta version of its browser Google Chrome. Previously, an integrated PDF viewer was available only in Chromium, the developer version of the browser.

The viewer, introduced on Thursday, makes it possible to view PDF documents within the browser as HTML web pages. It does this through the use of an open-source next-generation API, named Pepper. This means that when opening PDFs, the browser does not need to open a dedicated PDF viewer program such as Adobe Reader, according to Google.

Adobe's PDF software is regularly patched for security flaws to help protect individuals "from malware and security attacks that are targeted at PDF files" Google software engineer John Abd-El-Malek said in a blog post that Google has put a "sandbox" around the Chrome PDF viewer.

For more on this story, read PDF viewer integrated into Google Chrome beta on ZDNet UK.