I just realized the images are not in windows 10 photo gallery either!? they are just in the firefox downloads library and they open in photo gallery but are no longer saved there. Something has changed recently though , and I need to know what setting I'm missing. thanks for any help.

Firefox just downloads the images to the location you pick and that's it for Firefox. When you want to view the pic, Windows will use the default app. see screenshot What is your default Photo Viewer app?

This is what's confusing me. I do have my preferred default photo app selected (windows photo gallery, I just checked again now) and up until recently it worked fine. I wonder if a recent windows update (12/10/20) changed some other setting. I was aware when I downloaded photo gallery that windows 10 doesn't support that older application, but it has been working fine until now.

There is no confusion about Firefox right? This is not a browser issue, this is a Windows issue. Firefox just downloads the images to your set location and that's it.

Well something changed, either with windows or firefox, I'm just trying to find out what. I'm not sure why you dismiss the idea that it might be a browser issue. Oh well, I guess I'll look elsewhere for answers. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Just to be clear... The issue is that the new photo app is opening your photos instead of the older one that you like. Is that correct?

I just updated from firefox 84.0.1 to 84.0.2 and it looks like it's working again?!? I think I updated to 84.0.1 around the time I first noticed the problem. Is it possible .1 caused my problem and .2 fixed it? (The possibility also exists that I am incompetent at operating my windows 10 laptop :) Well it seems to be working now, thanks again for taking the time to reply.

Good. Mark your last post as the solution.