Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

peets · 2008-06-07 21:34:41

My financial institution and my government like javascript and "Acrobat Reader". When I want to go check my credit card bills, I get told "you don't have Acrobat Reader. Get it.". The same thing happens when I want to go read my income tax refund statement. If I install acroread, the pdf file opens embedded inside my browser (firefox3).

I don't want the adobe program. Is there some way to "fake" having acroread installed and get access to the pdf file?

Of course, I will file a bug report with both of these services

tigrmesh · 2008-06-07 22:09:15

Will those sites allow you to save the file to disk? Then you can use whatever program you want to open the file.

droog · 2008-06-07 22:56:28

If you use firefox, there is an extension that gives you the option of converting the pdf to html or downloading it before trying to open it. its called pdf download.

peets · 2008-06-08 01:44:20

I tried pdf download, but it doesn't do anything.
No, tigrmesh, I can't find a link to the file for download.

The link I click to read the file says this: https://desjardins-f.eroute.ca/service/ … yable=true (I censored some numbers just in case)

The page that gets displayed is this:

<frameset rows="30, *" border=0 framespacing=0>
    <frame name="title" src="/service/topNav.a?folder=0&order=&sortCol=&documentId=########&isPayable=true&documentType=B&subscriptionState=&system=epost" scrolling=no frameborder=0 border=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>
    <frame name="Detail" src="/service/displayEpostMail.a?ImportSummaryId=########" scrolling=auto frameborder=0 border=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>
</frameset>

Everything seems to be done server-side. My client is only passing an ID. Which makes sense: I can't steal money from them this way.

But how does it know I don't have acrobat? Can I get Firefox to tell them that I do? And download the file securely over the SSL connection?

Last edited by peets (2008-06-08 01:52:05)

sniffles · 2008-06-08 09:03:59

peets wrote:

But how does it know I don't have acrobat?

Probably via Javascript. Do you happen to know HTML? Try viewing the source of those frames.

gnud · 2008-06-08 12:35:22

It's possible to access some plugin information using javascript. This is probably what your bank is doing.
It should be possible to make a fake adobe plugin that just opens epdf or whatever. But I don't know if it exists. And I doubt if Adobe would permit a plugin to be distributed that registers itself with information like "vendor: Adobe inc.".

peets · 2008-06-08 16:35:23

sniffles wrote:

peets wrote:
But how does it know I don't have acrobat?
Probably via Javascript. Do you happen to know HTML? Try viewing the source of those frames.

Yeah, I can read html a bit. The html is what I posted above, plus a <head> section with the page title and some other crap (no javascript).

As I see it, here are my options:

1. Write a workaround javascript plugin that Adobe won't be happy about. I'd have to learn javascript and (shudder) firefox. Pay very high interest rates on the credit card bills for a few months.
2. Complain so hard that they change their way of doing things. I mean, complain SO HARD that they think it will be worth the effort to pay a developer for a few weeks to fix this. Pay high interest rates until they've fixed this.
3. File the bug reports / complaints and install acroread from AUR. Pay my bills and get my income tax return.

1. is boring and painful
2. I don't believe in convincing people; they should see for themselves what's right
3. seems the correct thing to do.

It would be nice if someone would write a pdf plugin for firefox. It would be nicer if they just sent me the info in html format. Pdf is paper-related, and I don't even have a printer. Save the trees!

sniffles · 2008-06-08 17:01:26

Mmmh. That HTML code just tells "use these 2 frames", I was saying: see the HTML code of the frames. In firefox: right click -> this frame -> .. (some source view option or something).

Anyway. Try turning off javascript and see what happens.

peets · 2008-06-09 01:14:20

I am so dumb. sniffles, I did like you said and read the source and found a javascript method called "override" which would let me download the file. Then I noticed the page that told me to download acrobat reader also said: "if you already have it installed, click here to download"... which I did. I can now pay my credit card without using acroread!

Now off to check the Quebec government site to see if I missed something of the sort!

Update: the Income tax site has this:

// NS3+, Opera3+, IE5+ Mac (support plugin array):  check for Acrobat plugin in plugin array
    if (navigator.plugins != null && navigator.plugins.length > 0) {
      for (i=0; i < navigator.plugins.length; i++ ) {
         var plugin = navigator.plugins[i];
         if (plugin.name.indexOf("Adobe Acrobat") > -1) {
            acrobatVersion = 4;
         }
      }
    }

... and some very ugly bits like this:

else if (agent.indexOf("msie") != -1 && parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 4 && agent.indexOf("win")!=-1 && agent.indexOf("16bit")==-1) {        
        document.write('<scr' + 'ipt language="VBScript"\> \n');
...

lol.

Now, is this a place where greasemonkey could help? I wonder what happens if I change the "acrobatVersion" to 4. I'll go try it out!

Other update:

looked briefly at greasemonkey, but got discouraged. I asked on the mozillazine forums if/how I could modify the javascript before it gets executed: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=664057

Last edited by peets (2008-06-09 02:19:09)

tigrmesh · 2008-06-09 03:18:57

Are you willing to use firefox2? Because the extension that would help you the most here is firebug, which hasn't been updated yet for ff3. This is from the firefox addins page for firebug: "You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page."

peets · 2008-06-13 00:58:36

tigrmesh, I can "edit" the html with firebug, but I can't get the changes to take effect on the live page, I think. I changed the method, but got the same result. I don't know if it's because the method change is useless, or because the changes didn't take effect.

I could edit the html/javascript before the page even reaches firefox. I'm sure there's some filters I can apply in some part of linux's network facilities. I'll go read up on that. It will save me the trouble of learning firefox and javascript, which are really of no interest to me.

MONODA · 2008-06-14 05:51:25

I remember usign the firefox extension firebug to do similar things.

jonlandrum · 2008-06-14 06:01:55

What about saving the file as an html on your desktop, removing the Acrobat check, and then run the file with your browser?

Arch Linux

#1 2008-06-07 21:34:41

Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#2 2008-06-07 22:09:15

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#3 2008-06-07 22:56:28

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#4 2008-06-08 01:44:20

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#5 2008-06-08 09:03:59

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#6 2008-06-08 12:35:22

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#7 2008-06-08 16:35:23

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#8 2008-06-08 17:01:26

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#9 2008-06-09 01:14:20

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#10 2008-06-09 03:18:57

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#11 2008-06-13 00:58:36

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#12 2008-06-14 05:51:25

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

#13 2008-06-14 06:01:55

Re: Alternatives to "Acrobat Reader"

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