Firefox 15 landed in Ubuntu 12.10 yesterday. brining with it a new native PDF viewer.

PDF.js, to give the plugin its official name, lets you read PDF files – either online or local – inside your browser, relying on nothing more than standard web technologies.

Amongst the features sported by the plugin are:

  • Adjustable page size/width
  • Contents list
  • Page thumbnails
  • ‘Download’ button

If you’re on Firefox 14 (or ealier) you don’t need to wait to try it out: a beta extension is available to install.

SPDY

Also rocking up in this beta is support for the SPDY (‘speedy’) networking protocol – though not by default. The technology, developed by Google and on its way to becoming a web standard, aims to ‘reduce web page load latency and improve web security.’

To enable SPDY v3 in Firefox 15 head to about:config and search ‘SPDY’. 

Getting Firefox 15 Beta

Firefox 15 Beta 2 is included in Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha, or, for earlier releases of Ubuntu, can be downloaded from Mozilla.

As with anything of a ‘developmental’ nature, this beta should not be installed by anyone seeking a stable browsing experience.

Thanks to Jeremy B.

Firefox pdf