# Why the PDF warnings? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 9, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-pdf-warnings/524323 "2010-01-09T20:39:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-pdf-warnings/524323/21 "2010-01-15T17:25:45Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You are aware that every single webpage ever downloads garbage to your hard drive, right? And, if you’re using a PDF plugin, all your PDFs should go to the same folder. I don’t know why they’re going to your download folder. It downloads garbage to my hard drive, but it is not garbage that gets in the way of my work. I do not use a pdf plugin, because I want to download my scientific papers to my hard drive. Not to mention, those plugins make pdf viewing miserable. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-pdf-warnings/524323/22 "2010-01-16T23:44:49Z")
I hate unwarned links to PDF’s. No matter what system/browser I’m on, they never seem to work cleanly. If I need to look at something in such a file, I’d much rather be warned so I can download it directly and open it in the proper reader, rather than fuck up my browser until I can get it to cancel the download/view operation. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-pdf-warnings/524323/23 "2010-01-23T19:23:52Z")
There’s been a marked improvement in the last two versions of AR. The older versions used to freeze up computers if they crashed upon loading. I haven’t had that happen for a while, but it used to happen 75% of the time I tried to load a PDF, even with a brand new computer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-pdf-warnings/524323.md?page=1)