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Ask PG: Why redirect all HackerNews submitted PDFs through Scribd?

14 points by DocSavage ↗ HN
I just tried to post a PDF infographic (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=223497), but deleted the post twice because the url was redirected through scribd automatically. In one case, using a URL "http://foo.pdf" caused an error in the automatic redirect. The domain for the submitted link is always labeled "scribd.com" even if it's coming from the authors, Xplane.com.

Shouldn't a Scribd interface for PDFs be optional instead of injected into any PDF link? You could use an intermediate page that has a link to original PDF (as submitted) as well as a link to the Scribd interface.

22 comments

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wdr1
Yes. Especially because Scribd sucks.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
ashleyw
He seems to have an obsession with telling people how bad scribd is. Maybe he works on the Adobe Acrobat team?
brianloveswords
This isn't a reply to this comment, this is a reply in general to any comment that says [deleted]:

Being deleted only makes me want know what the comment was. It's like censoring books: it only makes them more popular.

boris
Another problem with this is that to view the document you need Flash and if you want to download the PDF version then you need to have an account with scribd and login. I am also wondering what's the reason behind this. It is not like YC has to host the PDF file. If it is to promote scribd (I am not sure whethere it is a YC startup) then that's pretty evil.
rplevy
I was about to say "what's the bid deal? there is a download link etc etc" but then I checked and realized these links go right to a view where the flash pdf viewer occupies the whole page. There's no obvious modification of the URL query string to make it show in the view where there is a download link. So if you see a big mangled attempt at loading flash instead of flash for whatever reasons, there's no other option.

This page has an acceptable view where there is a link to download: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3292935/THE-LITTLE-MERMAID

But the automatic scribd links don't show it in this view.

merrick33
I find scribd's feature set to be useful, and pdf's to be a pain to deal with. While there are times I like to have a file on my system, 99.7% of the time bookmarking a pdf on scribd in delicious is much more user friendly to me.
xlnt
it should be my choice what i want to do with a pdf. viewing in scribd is one of many things i might want to do. yc shouldn't make that decision for me. scribd should release a browser plugin instead (if they haven't), and leave it up to users
SwellJoe
I happen to prefer it. On every computer I use (all of which run some variant of Linux), Acrobat Reader opens in a pop up window, which is annoying and slow. I generally simply avoid all PDF links for this reason, but Scribd links aren't quite as offensive. I'd certainly always prefer my web to be HTML only (with a few pictures of cats), but if you've got to send me to a PDF, it might as well be one that lives in the browser.

I'm not sure why there's been such a backlash against Scribd lately. It's just something you read, you know? Neither PDF nor Scribd is enjoyable to use...so why complain about Scribd? It makes it more convenient and fast for some of us, and doesn't really impact others very much. Just because you happen to find Acrobat Reader slightly less annoying than Scribd (because I know you can't find reading PDFs enjoyable) doesn't mean you should be able to make the experience here at HN less consistent. I know that PDF links at HN will always be reasonably fast and available on my machines without having a new window open. If you could choose to provide a PDF directly, I would no longer click on PDFs, because I would never know whether I was getting the slow and irritating popup window, or the much less slow and mostly non-irritating Scribd interface.

tel
I think some part of the Scribd hating of late is that — at least on osx — pdfs are actually pretty enjoyable.

Scribd does a good thing given that they have to operate online through flash, but having pdfs actually be convenient at an OS level trumps that.

I know it's no help for those stuck using Adobe, but it is, from my experience, some part of an explanation.

tx
PDFs are very nice on Gnome too. The default reader is super-fast and PDFs really feel like nicely formatted text files. PDF simply rocks.

Why, oh why, don't they convert everything into PDFs or (better) HTML?!

Scribd is solving a real problem which exists but their approach is the most perverted way imaginable... View your docs... through a FLASH PLUGIN! Even converting them into high-res JPEGs would have been alot better.

SwellJoe
I disagree. The Gnome document viewer also opens another window--I hate popups, as they're disorienting. So, it's faster than Acrobat by a large margin...but it pops up, and is still generally slower than Scribd. I simply don't find PDF to be a an acceptable substitute for HTML when it comes to reading.

So, I agree that converting to HTML would be better...it's technically a much larger challenge (click on the View as HTML link at Google for a Word or PDF document...and you'll see how well--or, not so well, in this case--a huge mega-corp with tons of cash, tons of smart engineers, and the obvious desire to do something useful in that direction, solves the problem).

I may not like Flash, but at least it works in the browser.

watmough
Yes, if you have a decent screen, PDFs are pretty good. And on the Mac, they are also pretty damn fast.

scribd is quite impressive for what it does, but Flash is a cruddy interface for dealing with multi-page documents. Add in the lack of recognition for the scroll-wheel, and poor font-rendering compared to native, and scribd becomes an active annoyance.

DougBTX
> Acrobat Reader opens in a pop up window, which is annoying and slow

Adobe don't have a monopoly on PDF readers, why do you even have it installed??

On OSX, PDFs open up in the browser just like HTML, and load only more slowly due to typically larger file sizes. I don't believe that noone has written a decent PDF viewer for Windows.

SwellJoe
Actually I mostly use the Gnome document viewer (I don't recall its name), but it also pops up a new window.
DocSavage
My post was not part of the Scribd backlash but an honest question why HN was doing the redirection. I think it was the first time I posted a raw PDF link and noticed the issues. I like Scribd for some uses, e.g., providing a good exchange system for non-hackers who also upload Microsoft Word docs.
rlm
As you can see, a majority of the HN-users want some kind of change to the way Scribd is used here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=175378). At least the choice between the scribd- and the pdf-link.

And there certainly are enough opinions on this subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222520, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222866 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=217682.

DocSavage
Ah, missed that poll from a few months back. And a couple of the recent posts were apparently killed before I read them.
snowmaker
Guys, relax. PG has already told us he's taking the feature out ... should be gone in a few days.

Incidentally, we never wanted iPaper to be implemented how it was on Hacker News. Our recommended implementation is always to give users a choice between iPaper and the original format. We asked PG to change it several times, but he was too busy creating the next 12 Googles, not that I blame him.

JDF President, Scribd

tomjen
Could you please also make sure that I can download the PDF without having to sign up?
ntoshev
On the iPhone I have no problems with PDF, but I can't open scribd at all.