Solving PDF irritations in Firefox

Don’t you find it really irritating when you click on a link on a website or blog and then discover that the link is to a PDF file? That usually happens after you’ve clicked the link. The PDF starts loading and takes forever because it’s a big file, or has loads of graphics, it’s a slow connection, etc.

Part of the irritation is the unexpectedness of it. Too many sites just don’t tell you there’s a PDF at the other end of that link (and, increasingly, other file types – big MP3s, for instance). Poor site design, in my view, with little thought for the "user experience."

If you use Firefox, there is a great solution – PDF Download, an extension for Firefox by Denis Remondini, which lets you choose whether you want to view the PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML) or download it.

So with this extension installed, when you click on a link that’s to a PDF file, you get a dialog like this –

No more surprises. Thanks, Denis, very useful.