This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox automatically opening downloaded content

more options

Firefox automatically opening downloaded content

Is this some kind of sick joke?

All of a sudden you've created an optionless setting that automatically opens downloaded material?

This is the last straw with your dodgy browser that crashes all the time.

Firefox automatically opening downloaded content Is this some kind of sick joke? All of a sudden you've created an optionless setting that automatically opens downloaded material? This is the last straw with your dodgy browser that crashes all the time.

All Replies (1)

more options

Are they PDFs? By default, Firefox will open PDFs in a tab. For servers that don't force a download, they open with their regular web address and are saved in the web content cache. For servers that force a download, they are saved in your downloads folder and then opened in a tab with a file:/// address.

Do you want to change how Firefox handles PDFs? There are a lot of different options, from always using the web content cache to never accepting a forced download (you always get the choice).

If it if some other kind of content that opens automatically, what is it? Does it open in Firefox or some other program?

As a general reference on changing how Firefox handles downloads, see: Manage file types and download actions in Firefox

Helpful?

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.