After installing the Firefox 32.0 update on Tuesday, I noticed that Firefox had taken over as the default PDF application on my computer. Despite having Adobe Reader installed and previously configured as the default PDF handler, Mozilla’s browser still thought it needed to take its place.
Starting with version 31, several other people reported it in Mozilla’s Support forums. People using Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader may find themselves in this situation. There hasn’t been a great answer to changing the behavior with Firefox’s install/update, particularly seeing as it persisted to version 32 in my instance. There were plenty of suggestions on changing the default PDF viewer back, but that’s the easy part. I believe the issue is only seen when you install the Firefox update manually. The auto-update does not seem to trigger the change in file association.
Changing your default PDF reader
- Find a PDF on your computer somewhere or download one to work with.
- Right-click on the PDF file and choose Open with >
- Go to ‘Choose default program…’
4. Select the software you want to open PDFs such as Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader.
5. Make sure the “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” is checked and click Ok.
The PDF document you’re working with will open in your preferred software but all other PDFs you open in the future should as well.