Disputable plugin behaviour

[foxbee]

Take the following combination:
1) a web page containing: <embed src="file.pdf" ...>;
2) Foxit Reader plugin installed (browsers: SeaMonkey and Firefox);
3) Foxit Reader configured to not show pdf's in the browser window.
(Strictly speaking <embed> is not a valid HTML 4 or XML keyword,
but it's widely used, so let's assume it to be valid)

This combination causes file.pdf not to be displayed in the browser
window - as intended - but not in a new Foxit Reader window either.
In my view it ought to do the latter, even though there's a bit of
contradiction between conditions 1 ("embed" is in fact a way to say
"display in the browser window") and 3.

[christina]

Sorry, I don't quite understand it.
Do you mean, the PDF was loaded into your local desktop, and could not be displayed in Foxit Reader either?

[foxbee]

The problem appears to be more complicated than I described. And at the heart
of the problem is the oversimplistic way Foxit Reader deals with deselecting the
option "Internet" / "Display PDF in internet browser":
Deselecting this option appears to cause Foxit Reader to rename the plugin in the
browser's plugin directory (or plugin directories with multiple browsers installed) to
"npFoxitReaderPlugin.dll.bak" and thus effectively disabling the plugin altogether!
This explains 2 things:
1) Since effectively there is no plugin then, the browser can't find/use it to start
up an external Foxit Reader to handle the embedded PDF.
2) Because the renaming happens in the browser's plugin directory, the setting
"Display PDF in internet browser" is a *global* setting. This is really bad, since
this typically should be a per-user setting.