Preview not opening pdf files unless they have an pdf extension

Preview will not open pdf that does not have a pdf extension. If I give a valid pdf file a random extension like .xxx, preview opens without windows. If I give it .jpg it opens with a questionmark in a window. If I give it pdf it open without a glitch.
Why cannot Preview detect whether a file is open-able or not an not give a **** about extension. This is not windows but a unix system
The problem exist when a pdf file is downloaded by firefox and not given a .pdf extention in the downloads folder. In Safari the file is opened without problems inside Safari.

Yeah, but Preview wont open the file at all, even through the open dialog, all files not associated with preview are greyed out. Shouldn't a program open a file if told to?
Yes, I agree with you. I also could not open the files unless I changed their extensions.
Also the "file" command has no problem finding out it's a pdf. I believe its an obsolete thing specifying filetype on extension, and not on content. Is is possible to get preview to open the file depending on content and not on extention.
Like I said, I think this was a conscious choice that Apple made with OS X, but I'm not sure why the decided to go that way (maybe posting on one of the dev lists would give you the answer to that).
I haven't been able to get Preview to open files once I've changed the file extension...

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