If you’re using a recent version of Windows, Microsoft’s Edge browser will “helpfully” make itself your default PDF viewer. You might want to change that default depending on how you feel about the latest news. Microsoft and Adobe have announced that Acrobat will soon be integrated with Edge for enhanced PDF support. Microsoft seems aware of Adobe’s legacy of buggy software living inside browsers, so it’s going out of its way to talk about all the work it’s doing to make sure the new Acrobat feature is secure.
According to Microsoft, replacing its custom PDF stack with Acrobat will mean better colors, sharper graphics, improved performance, and (allegedly) more robust security. Acrobat in Edge will also enable new features like read-aloud narration and more reliable text selection in documents. All these basic capabilities will continue to be free, so you should not notice any loss of functionality as Acrobat support rolls out.
This is not a purely altruistic move by Adobe. Acrobat’s basic features are free, but it also sells premium subscriptions, and it’ll be trying to convert some of Microsoft’s 1.4 billion users to paying customers. A subscription adds features like text and image editing, file conversion, and combining files. The wording of Microsoft’s blog post is a bit vague, but it sounds like there will be an upsell built into Edge’s Acrobat interface. If you upgrade, a browser extension can be used to unlock those features. Those with a pre-existing subscription (starting at $13 per month) will also be able to use the extension to get premium features.
Until a few years ago, Adobe’s Flash platform was integrated with many browsers, but it was a security nightmare. PDF malware exists, but it’s not very common right now. Still, giving Adobe the chance to bungle browser security again is an interesting choice from Microsoft. In a separate blog post, Microsoft explains that it has implemented numerous technical countermeasures like PartitionAlloc (a secure heap implementation) and fuzzing (automated vulnerability testing). Acrobat in Edge will also be included in Microsoft’s bug bounty program, which the company hopes will encourage developers to report issues instead of turning them into exploits.
Edge is a core part of Windows 10 and 11 — you can’t even uninstall it. Microsoft is aware that Windows administrators in managed environments might not want the browser’s PDF handler to change overnight, so the rollout will happen in stages. Managed devices will have to opt-in for now, but the old Edge PDF engine will be discontinued in March 2024. For regular users, you can expect Acrobat to begin appearing in builds of Edge next month.
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from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://ift.tt/CgmvMXS
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