Give us back the open option

[SylouMan]

Please give us back the ability to just open file the way it was before and was working perfectly fine. now when i choose to open a file it in fact saved it... my download folder is now full of files i don't want to keep and i have to delete hundred of stuff manually every days... it is a real pain and i don't understand why you did this... or at least change the option name instead of lying to us about what it does...

[jscher2000]

Hi SylouMan, as you noticed, Firefox 98 changed what happens when you choose "Open with [relevant application]" in the Download dialog or "Use [relevant application]" on the Settings/Preferences page:

• Before Firefox 98: File was saved in the Windows Temp folder (or Linux /tmp folder)
• Firefox 98+: File is saved in your designated downloads folder (the one next to "Save Files to" on the Settings/Preferences page)

This change addressed problems with data loss for users who could not re-download files they forgot to save after they were removed from the Temp folder. However, now users who preferred those files to be "out of sight, out of mind" are faced with the task of cleaning them up manually.

In Firefox 102, the developers added a hidden option to use the Windows Temp (or Linux /tmp) folder for those downloads, similar to Firefox 97 and earlier. This is hidden away, so here's how to find it:

(A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. Please keep in mind that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future.

(B) In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir and pause while the list is filtered

(C) Double-click the preference to switch the value from false to true (or click the toggle button toward the right end of the row)

----

A special note about PDFs:

If you keep the default action for PDFs, which is "Open in Firefox", more PDFs are downloaded automatically now. The technical reason for this is that some servers instruct browsers NOT to show the PDF in a tab, and Firefox 98 started ignoring this by downloading first and then opening in a tab (from a file:// address).

To make those PDFs open from their https:// address instead, Firefox 103+ users can change a different preference:

(A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(B) In the search box in the page, type or paste browser.download.open_pdf_attachments_inline and pause while the list is filtered

(C) Double-click the preference to switch the value from false to true (or click the toggle button toward the right end of the row)

Hopefully some combination of the above tweaks gets Firefox working the way you want. Let us know.

[kremlinbot]

Thank you for response! Still, out would be nice to have some way to configure the previous behavior for some files (e.g. PDFs are saved to %temp%, Word Documents — to the Downloads folder), like add an additional option in downloads settings

[SylouMan]

Hi,

So just because some people don't understand the diff between "open" and "save" now we all have to deal with that annoying behavior!!!??? Those people will still don't have a clue of what they are doing and therefore will still lost their file, so not only mozilla is messing with millions if not billions of user but also they won't help those they though they help... great move...

And your workaround is a terrible idea, not only it doesn't solve the issue at all but instead it mess up with regular download that will now be saved in a temp folder and then be erase... and as you said we are not guaranted that option will last (mozilla has already delete perfectly working other option there to replace them for not working at all mess up option...)

Seriously stop with that and give us back the perfectly working behavior that worked fine for decades!!!

[jscher2000]

---

@SylouManwrote:

And your workaround is a terrible idea, not only it doesn't solve the issue at all but instead it mess up with regular download that will now be saved in a temp folder and then be erase...

---

No, the about:config change does not affect what happens when you choose "Save File"; you still control the folder where the file is saved. The change only rolls back the folder used for "Open with [relevant application]" or "Use [relevant application]" to what it was in Firefox 97 and earlier.

As for the bigger question of how Firefox should work, yes, this change was made because some people lost files. As an advanced user, you can understand that software often needs to have a protective behavior by default and you can exercise your option to make it less protective. You're right that we might not have that option forever, but use it while you can, right?

[SylouMan]

Ok that indeed work, i still won't accept it as a solution knowing they will change it later for sure...
Also not related (just a bit) but they recently change the behaviour so the browser don't ask us anymore what to do when downloading something... i had to rechange it manually for all file type to tell him to ask me what to do... i never check the "always do that" box and anyway it would not have happen with file type i never download, so once again mozilla change a core behaviour without our consentement... i think this browser is about to die if they continue like that...

[PCKid]

Dear devs,

I strongly appreciate the protective behaviour, but this change has the following rather dangerous side-effect (making it far from protective). Please follow my thinking:

• many of the files one chooses to "open" vs "save" could be confidential files and have been expected to be removed on exit (hence the saving in a temporary folder).
• the change leaves all long-term users of Firefox (used to the default behaviour) exposed to the results of the change: having possibly confidential files in the Downloads folder with a filename that may have easily been randomly generated and - thus - is almost impossible to identify at a later stage.
• keeping a persistent, accessible option (i.e. not in about:config) of whether to save the temp files in the temp directory is a must for the above reasons.
• On the other hand, having selected "ask me always where to save the file" is an explicit option for everything, which suddenly does not hold when opening files. This is a clear UI/UX contradiction regardless of whether one is an advanced or a new user. This, combined with the essential backward (behaviour) incompatibility/change makes the problem even bigger.

As a final suggestion, I should say that for me it was really unexpected that this behaviour was changed, without the appropriate explicit warning (forgive me if there was actually such a warning and I failed to see it...).

Thank you for the excellent work you have been doing all this time and looking forward to an appropriate handling of this challenge.