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by dEnigma 3146 days ago
In my case, while I'm on my phone, the pdf is automatically downloaded and opened in a different app; so it is nice to have a warning.
1 comments

It's also something of a legacy convention (though one I prefer to maintain), from when PDF files were a leading vector for malware.

Though even back then, malware concerns aside, people would curse when a link caused Acrobat Reader (or, depending on one's system, the full Acrobat program) to unexpectedly fire up. Once upon a time, browsers didn't have integrated PDF handling.

And, even now, with integrated PDF handling, said handling is not proof against exploits.