topic PDFs opened in Firefox are still being downloaded (even when 'Always Ask' is enabled in settings) in Discussions

PDFs opened in Firefox are still being downloaded (even when 'Always Ask' is enabled in settings)

shawn — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 21:52:01 GMT

Ever since a recent update, I've been frustrated by how PDF links are behaving---

When set to 'Always ask' in browser settings, choosing 'Open with Firefox' in the resulting dialog box still causes the file to auto-downloaded to my PC. So instead of showing the file's URL in the address bar, the local address is shown, e.g.,,

file:///C:\Users\pcname\Downloads\filename.pdf

This used to show the file's URL, which is helpful when sharing the link, saving it somewhere, citing it, etc.

If it's set to just open in Firefox, the correct URL is shown in the address bar. But I'd rather keep this on 'Always Ask' since there are occasions where I want to open PDFs directly in another app or save them without opening.

So, when viewing a PDF in-browser, please show the file's URL when (a) 'Always ask' is enabled, and (b) when the user clicks 'Open with Firefox' in the dialog box.

#NotSureIfFeatureOrBug

Re: PDFs opened in Firefox are still being downloaded (even when 'Always Ask' is enabled in settings

billyswong — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 07:58:22 GMT

My computer did set PDF to "open in Firefox" by default but I also set browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel to false. PDF links from Google search opens with a file:/// path in address bar here.

My opinion is same with @shawn , let's keep the original URL in address bar, even if some hack is needed. One use of keeping the original URL is successful session restore after the temporary files were removed.

Re: PDFs opened in Firefox are still being downloaded (even when 'Always Ask' is enabled in settings

linux — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 14:27:43 GMT

Hi @shawn, I agree with you, that's a very annoying behavior.

You may try out the following:

Open a new tab. In the address bar, type: about:config
If a warning appears, confirm that you want to access the extended settings
In the search bar, look for: browser.download.open_pdf_attachments_inline
Set the value to "true" by clicking on the line

This stopped Firefox downloading the pdf files for me on all the websites I visited after the change. Hope this works for you!

Re: PDFs opened in Firefox are still being downloaded (even when 'Always Ask' is enabled in settings

shawn — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 21:50:35 GMT

Thanks for the tip! I can't remember the exact changes I made to fix this, but I think it involved changing browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir back to 'true' (and possibly disabling improvements to the download panel).