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Clicking to open a link downloads instead

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Clicking to open a link downloads instead of simply opening. It is very annoying. I am just wanting to open it and read it not download or download and save. What has changed this started yesterday????

Clicking to open a link downloads instead of simply opening. It is very annoying. I am just wanting to open it and read it not download or download and save. What has changed this started yesterday????

All Replies (3)

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Does this occur for all links or just links pointing to a specific file type (ex. PDF or Word Document)?

Some files need to be downloaded and viewed in another piece of software. You can set how Firefox handles these files from the application panel in the options tab.

For more information on the application panel, please refer to this Mozilla support article:

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Again this is not the issue, your answer. This is not all the time but it is a new problem. In the past I could click on a pdf and it would simply open. Now it immediately asks where I want to save it. I have to save and then open. Very time consuming considering this wasn't happening until a couple of days ago.

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In order to change the default reader for PDF files (to not open PDF files with Firefox's internal PDF reader), follow these steps:

  1. Click the menu button New Fx Menu and click Options (Preferences for Linux and Mac).
  2. In the Options (Preferences for Linux and Mac) tab (window for previous than 38.0 firefox version), select the Applications panel.
  3. In the Search field, type PDF. You should find Portable Document Format (PDF).
  4. On the right hand side you should find an Action column. Use that to select your favorite PDF reader. In order to view PDF files in Firefox, choose Preview in Firefox.

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