Announcing FileOpen BrowserUX: Share PDFs Securely with No Plug-in Required

FileOpen is excited to announce production availability of their system to display FileOpen-encrypted PDF in any modern browser, on any platform, without installation of any software! FileOpen BrowserUX works for any PDF encrypted with the FileOpen software, now or in the past, and delivers the files as native PDFs, not converted to images or any other format. All of the core functionality and security of FileOpen PDFs displayed in Adobe Acrobat/Reader can now be delivered without installation of the FileOpen Client.

What does this mean for you and your users?

Now you can deliver PDF documents securely, with the same rich feature set of access controls, to your intended users regardless of their particular environment. Your users won’t have to install any plug-ins or client software to access protected files, reducing friction and tech support issues.

How It Works?

All components of the system are built from the W3C and ISO standards that define the Web and PDF. So the user experience is the same in any modern browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge. etc.) on any supported platform (Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, Android and Chromium.)

As has always been true of FileOpen products, the PDFs displayed in the browser are ISO 32000-compliant, full-featured PDFs so retain all PDF navigation features (bookmarks, thumbnails, etc.) and preserve accessibility. The files are the very same encrypted PDFs that might otherwise be opened on the desktop via Adobe Acrobat/Reader (and other viewers that support the FileOpen Client). Because of this commitment to standards, FileOpen BrowserUX is fully backward compatible to even the very first FileOpen-encrypted PDF — any PDF that can be opened in Acrobat/Reader can now also be opened in the browser.

Permission to decrypt and use PDFs in the browser is managed by the same PermissionServer logic used to control access in Acrobat/Reader. So user identity and credentials can be the ones in use today, and the same permission controls and watermarks can be imposed. Because it runs in the browser, the system enables integration with single-sign on systems like SAML and with other web components or portals. And since no server-side format conversion is needed, the system can scale up to handle even the largest implementations.

How to Get Started with FileOpen BrowserUX

Licensees using FileOpen RightsManager and the FileOpen Viewer platform can begin delivering PDF into the browser immediately. FileOpen RightsServer licensees can choose between setting up a private instance of the delivery module or using one hosted by FileOpen. FileOpen Toolkit/SDK licensees also have the choice of delivering files into the browser from their own infrastructure or using a FileOpen hosted platform. In most cases the new capability can be added with little or no modification to the existing PermissionServer.