Force PDFs to open in the browser viewer or to download, overriding what the site asks for.
Users
47
+28 in 30 days
Rating
5.0 / 5
unchanged in 30 days
Ratings
4
+3 in 30 days
Store rank
#111K
#93K among extensions
Version
1.0.0
updated 23 Sep 2026
Users
monthly, 2 months
Latest, 19 Oct 2026:47 usersMove the mouse over the chart for any month
Ratings count
monthly, 2 months
Latest, 19 Oct 2026:4 ratingsMove the mouse over the chart for any month
The Chrome Web Store rounds user counts down to the leading digit, so the user line moves in steps. The ratings count is exact and is the better signal of real adoption.
About PDForce
Some sites force PDFs to download when you only wanted to read them. Others open a PDF in the viewer when you were trying to save it. PDForce puts that choice back in your hands.
Pick one of three modes from the toolbar:
• Off — no interference, sites behave as they normally would.
• Force View — PDFs open in Chrome's built-in PDF viewer.
• Force Download — PDFs are saved to your computer.
PDForce works in two ways. It adjusts the Content-Disposition and Content-Type response headers of PDF page loads, which covers ordinary links, redirects, form submissions and URLs with no .pdf extension. It also adjusts the "download" attribute on PDF links in the page, so links a site marked as downloads can be opened in the viewer, and vice versa.
Your choice is remembered until you change it. The extension sends no data anywhere, contains no tracking or analytics, and does not read page content — it only looks at link addresses to decide which links are PDFs.
Some downloads are built entirely in JavaScript by the page (for example blob: saves) and cannot be redirected by any extension. Those are out of scope and will keep behaving as the site intends.
PDForce is free and open source, licensed under the AGPLv3. Source: https://github.com/DocterDum/PDForce