Old browsers - old OS - TLS

Firefox under Win11 is pretty good. It wants to update fairly often but doesn't seem to change much. It doesn't crash. It opens PDFs just fine.

Some of the add-ins are good too.

I really miss Win7. It did everything right.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

How out-of-date is your Firefox release? I noticed lots of problems accessing "mainstream" sites using Ffox under W7 and grudgingly updated to W10 -- which I am now abandoning in favor of FBSD.

The "problem" is related to changes in those sites as Ffox was quite happy with most other sites visited.

Have you tried wget(1)? It likely will give you more clues...

Get a fee pdf reader?

I generally tell Firefox to open pdfs in Foxit reader.

If all you want to do is read PDF's, the free Foxit reader is good enough:

However, to edit PDF's with Foxit, one needs to pay for a subscription to Foxit PDF Editor for $130 per user per year.

Try opening a PDF by:

- Find the PDF file.

- Right click and select "Open With".

- Select "Firefox" and see what happens.

- If Firefox is not listed under "open with", again under "chose another app".

If you can open the PDF file using "open with" but not by double clicking the PDF file, then you need change or fix the "default app" for PDF. For Windoze 7: "Windows 7: How to change the default program for a file"

Oops. That's wrong. I managed to mix the questions on Old OS with a previous question on Notepad replacement.

I've never done that. pdfs are not for editing, just for distributing when you've done the editing with something else.

You're missing out on lots of possibilities! I use Acrobat but imagine other tools have similar capabilities.

The local university has a surplus equipment auction each month (or more often). They distribute a PDF with images of each lot, a cover letter explaining the terms and a space beneath each photo for a bidder to enter a bid amount.

You can print this. Write your bid amounts. Sign it. Scan it. And email/fax it back to them (to save the trip).

OR, you can "open for editing", pick an appropriate typeface/size, TYPE your bid amounts, name, address, phone, etc. along with an image of your handwritten signature. "Save" and then email as attachment.

Keep a copy for your records, sidestepping all of the intermediate paper handling.

Likewise for tax and other "legal" forms. Less risk of someone misreading a sloppy '8' for a '6', etc. Or, an 'l' for an 'I'.

Take paper forms, scan them to PDF and annotate those documents...

I've never bothered with Acrobat but I have used this to make pdfs

There are a number of "PDF printers" that can be plumbed to the printer output to package the content appropriately.

My scanners are typically configured to produce PDFs so I open them and mark them up, as appropriate. E.g., I use PDFs as one would use (manilla) file folders in ages past; I have one called "Prescriptions XXXX" (X being the year) into which I append scans of all prescriptions; another for each bank/brokerage/investment account; etc.

So, instead of a shitload of individual scanned pages that have to be aggregated in a folder/archive, it's just a single file that I can thumb through.

I frequently print to pdf and sometimes to XPS. Microsoft hid one or both of those in turn windows features on or off.

I've never used XPS and assume its just MS's attempt to try to create a different standard.

I have a variety of different windows and *BSD tools that let me create and modify PDFs. But, my "go to" tool is Acrobat as it seems to support all of the features available to PDFs, natively.

As with all Adobe products, the UI is quirky but likely makes sense to *someone* who created it. You just have to learn what's where.

It is very convenient for creating PDFs without any fuss (e.g., I can select several files in Windows Explorer and then say "combine in Acrobat" and end up with a document containing them. And, let *it* sort out the OCR, etc.)

We *really* eschew paper, here. I've, presently, got a stack of textbooks at my side that are waiting for their visit to the guillotine...

For my "collections (folders) implemented as PDFs", I can open the existing PDF "collection", then the "pages" that want to be merged in another Acrobat instance and just drag the page thumbnails from one into the other.

If I am attentive and keep up with the new documents arriving (e.g., append the latest bank statement to the collection of statements for THAT bank), this just takes a minute or so each month. If I am delinquent in this action, then I may have to exercise more care to ensure the statements end up merged in the correct order.

Firefox has no issues with retrieving and saving or displaying pdf format here. This is a website specific thing - Analog Devices, in this case, but I've hit others with the same problem.

Sometimes 'internet-ready' pdfs show rubbish when you try to retreive actual text from it's displayed content. This may often be corrected by republishing it with more amenable software. That's not Firefox's fault ( I don't think).

RL

The "last supported" version of FF under W7 has problems with newer site designs.

There are multiple PDF "standards" (A, X, E, etc.) each tweeking the file's *representation* of the "content" to be delivered. If you are a professional publisher, the exact format chosen makes a difference in the quality of the output generated.

Additionally, files created for "fast web viewing" are restructured to expedite rendering of the first page, earlier.

And, of course, something that has been OCRed likely appears as a legitimate image -- with the OCRed text superimposed (on an invisible layer). So, there is no guarantee that the text agrees with what your eyes perceive in the image.

I'm too lazy to install Win 7 on one of my computers or in a VM. However, could you send me a link or two to a PDF from the Analog Devices web pile that causes problems? I have some ancient desktops that probably have Win 7 installed that should allow me to try various combinations.

Another possibility is the PDF version. Latest seems to be 2.0.

"ISO 32000-2:2020" (latest PDF version)

"PDF versions" (2024)

My guess(tm) is that the problem might be hiding in the document PDF version, which might be incompatible with whatever the PDF reader versions are supported.

This is beginning to look like the regression testing I've done in the distant past. To identify this problem, I suspect that we will need to fish for answers in the Adobe documentation swamp.

In self-defense, please ignore my request for sample PDF files. I don't need this nightmare and wish to retain my sanity.

Does XPS offer an advantage? (S.

A Micro$oft product? Don't be ridiculous.

Jeroen Belleman

It's easy to run it through other software to make a png. People sometimes send me pdfs of images when I just want the image.

I know people who would print and scan it but I prefer to keep the image quality.