Comparison
Docs Online Viewer vs Foretaste
Both put a button beside a document link. Docs Online Viewer hands the link to an online viewer; Foretaste reads the file in your own browser tab.
Everything said about Docs Online Viewer here is in its own words, from its own listing or policy, read on 12 October 2026. Sources
01
Side by side
| What | Docs Online Viewer | Foretaste |
|---|---|---|
| How a document is opened | It “uses third party online services like Google docs API (or other services when available)” to open links. S1 The same listing says the developer “will not collect or use your data”. | Fetches the file from the site it is on and reads it inside your browser tab. |
| Who learns the address you open | Clicking the link it adds “will expose the URL to the external website”, which is docs.google.com. S2 Its policy adds that showing the link “does not send any data” on its own. | Only the site the file is already on. No file, file name or address reaches a Foretaste server. Foretaste also offers Google’s viewer, but only after it has failed itself, behind a warning and a confirmation. |
| On Firefox | Opens files “using Google Docs & Zoho Viewer”. S3 | The same reader as on Chrome and Edge, in your browser. |
| Documents it names | PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, PPT, RTF, ODT, ODS, ODP and CSV, “and many more”. S1 | PDF, DOCX, XLSX, XLS, PPTX, ODT, ODS, ODP and CSV are drawn in your tab, alongside archives, databases, datasets, media and code: 212 file extensions in all. |
| Archives | None among the formats its listing names. S1 | ZIP, 7z, RAR, TAR and more, listed from their index: about 67 KB read of a 40 MB ZIP. |
| Last updated | 14 August 2024, on Chrome. S1 Its Firefox listing (S3): 25 April 2024. | October 2026 (version 1.6.0). |
02
Foretaste, reading a Word document
The real viewer, running on this page. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded: scroll it, press things.
The real Foretaste viewer reading sample.docx on a measured Letter page, running on this page.
Word document1.2 KBWords 30
- Tables
- 1
- Page
- Letter
- Type
- application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
The whole file was read - 1.2 KB.
How this was read
- Asked how big it is—
- Asked for the whole file1.2 KB
Processed locally · Foretaste reads files on your device and does not upload them.
External viewer · Google fetches the file themselves.
What the site said about this file
- Name
- sample.docx
- Kind
- Word document
- Reported type
- application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
- Size
- 1.2 KB
- Partial reads
- Supported. Foretaste can read part of the file without fetching all of it.
- Address
- http://localhost:8797/sample.docx
Reads the whole file to compare against a published checksum. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The questions people ask
Is Foretaste an alternative to Docs Online Viewer?
For most documents, yes: both put a button beside a document link and open it in a tab. The difference is where it is read. Docs Online Viewer’s listing says it “uses third party online services like Google docs API (or other services when available)”; Foretaste reads the file inside your own browser tab, so no viewer service is involved.
Does Docs Online Viewer send the address of a document to Google?
Its own privacy policy says that clicking the link it adds “will expose the URL to the external website”, which is docs.google.com, and that showing the link “does not send any data” on its own. What Google does with an address is described in Google’s own policy, not here.
Can Foretaste open a document inside a ZIP?
Yes. Foretaste lists a ZIP from the index at its end over byte ranges, about 67 KB read of a 40 MB archive, and opens any file inside it in the same tab, reading only that file.
Sources
Where each claim comes from
Read on 12 October 2026, and checked again by 12 April 2027. If a source has changed by then, this page changes with it.