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

PDF files always opening in browser now.

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by AliceWyman

more options

Now with this new update, pdf files always open in browser. In the previous version, even when configured in the settings, the file was downloaded from some websites when this was the case. In other words, the browser is not respecting the rule defined by the website itself of downloading the file and not opening it within the browser. Now, the files always opens in-browser, it's very annoying. It looks like it's a bug. Please fix it.

Now with this new update, pdf files always open in browser. In the previous version, even when configured in the settings, the file was downloaded from some websites when this was the case. In other words, the browser is not respecting the rule defined by the website itself of downloading the file and not opening it within the browser. Now, the files always opens in-browser, it's very annoying. It looks like it's a bug. Please fix it.

All Replies (5)

more options

Try going to Tools -> Settings -> General and in the Applications area, set PDFs to Always Ask or whatever option you want to happen. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/kznL8PQ.png

More info: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-firefox-behavior-when-open-file

more options

A change was made several versions ago for 'local' pdf files which evidently extended to files on an intranet. Are you referring to an intranet? If so, you will have to change a preference in about:config.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1733362 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox

more options

PDF files now open in Firefox by default, even files served by the website with "Content-Disposition: attachment". See How file downloads are handled in Firefox.

more options

it would be simpler if it was left as it was or at least had the option of leaving it as it was before, but apparently it doesn't. Apparently, a "non-issue" has been resolved in this update.

more options

The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers. If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Submit Feedback... or use this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.

You can also file a bug report or feature request. See File a bug report or feature request for Mozilla products for details.