Finally found a fix how to stop firefox downloading each PDF to your local drive - eviltoast
Re: Firefox now saves files that I only wanted to open
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I just learned some good news: Firefox 103 users can switch the case (B) to case (A) using a setting. Could you make this change, turn off the extension(s), and test again? Here's how you can check on that: (A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click...

Hey guys

Today I got so annyed by firefox’s default behaviour of downloading each and every PDF file to my disk that I went searching for a solution until I had the problem fixed. And it seems like I have finally found it. I have linked the solution but here is the fix in short:

  1. go to about:config
  2. change browser.download.open_pdf_attachments_inline to true

Thank you jscher2000 for the solution!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9785046

  • Eager EagleEnglish
    2•7 months ago

    Even with browser.download.open_pdf_attachments_inline set to false (default), Firefox already opens PDFs instead of downloading them, thanks to this setting:

    For what use cases is that needed?

    • PropaGandalfOP
      3•7 months ago

      For me it still downloads and then opens it in firefox. In the description it clearly says: Choose how Firefox handles the files you download from the web (…). And I don’t want it to download the file to my disk in the first place just store it in chache like a regular website.

      • Eager EagleEnglish
        2•7 months ago

        it doesn’t download them for me, unless I explicitly save the PDF that opens

        like this example.

        (akhtually it’ll always download in order to open it, I just mean it doesn’t create a PDF in the downloads directory)

        • PropaGandalfOP
          1•7 months ago

          Which firefox version are you on? I’m on 122.0b1 (flatpak beta) and changing these settings just defines what happens after I download the file. Also my download folder is set to ~/Downloads

          • Eager EagleEnglish
            2•7 months ago

            121.0 stable, .deb from Firefox’s ppa

            interesting

            • PropaGandalfOP
              1•7 months ago

              Wait do you download the files to you /tmp dir? Or do you store the files in the browser cache?

              • Eager EagleEnglish
                3•7 months ago

                my downloads dir is ~/downloads/ but Firefox doesn’t create a file there, so it must use a temp location for the PDF that opens.