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Google Pack Could Offer More Free Software for Download

Foxit Reader was supposed to be included in Google Earth

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

27th of July 2007, 08:28 GMT

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Google Pack is a free collection of utilities powered by numerous software companies and bundled into a single archive distributed by Google. Despite the products created by the Mountain View company, there are also several applications that should be installed on a computer in order to have anything you need. For example, Google Pack contains Mozilla Firefox, RealPlayer,

Norton Security Scan and Spyware Doctor Starter Edition. But the application that caused some buzz around the Google Pack is surely Adobe Reader, the freeware program that allows users to view PDF files with ease.

As blogger Ionut Alex Chitu reports, the search giant wasn't sure which PDF viewer should be included in the Google Pack because Larry Page, Google's co-founder, wanted to choose Foxit Reader. After several months of talks, the Mountain View company finally chose Adobe Reader that is currently a part of the Google Pack.

But there were several advantages for Foxit Reader that made the Google officials think twice before selecting another application. First of all, Foxit Reader is compressed into a setup file of 1.67 MB while the Adobe Reader installation file has no less than 22.3 MB. The solution? Google chose Adobe Reader but created a special function to allow the consumers to choose which software they want to get.

"PDF is essentially a platform at this point. One thing that has pained both the search side and on the Google Pack side is the startup time of the app. That's what causes us to do 'view as HTML.' The size of the application and the speed," Marissa Mayer, Google vice president of search products and user experience, said - according to PDF Zone.

The final and the most advantageous solution was discovered by Google, as Marrissa Mayer said. The company created a special "View as HTML" function for the PDF files that helps you open this type of documents straight from the browser's window.

TAGS:

google | pack | pdf | reader

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