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How to disable the built-in media player in FFv21?

  • 3 replies
  • 8 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by BK_Malik

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I've just updated FF to v21 and whenever I click a direct link to an mp3 file, it starts to play automatically in the browser instead of downloading. I'm aware I could right click on the links to save the content but previous versions of FF would just start to download automatically so I would like to get that behaviour back if possible please.

The 'application' settings for the file types is already set to 'save file' and disabling all the plugins and extensions doesn't change anything either.

Any help would be cool.

Thanks.

I've just updated FF to v21 and whenever I click a direct link to an mp3 file, it starts to play automatically in the browser instead of downloading. I'm aware I could right click on the links to save the content but previous versions of FF would just start to download automatically so I would like to get that behaviour back if possible please. The 'application' settings for the file types is already set to 'save file' and disabling all the plugins and extensions doesn't change anything either. Any help would be cool. Thanks.

All Replies (3)

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Ability to play files that were created with a patented encoding is a new feature on Windows. If you want to block Firefox from natively playing such files, which basically would return Firefox to the previous behavior, you can switch a setting under the covers.

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste media and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click media.windows-media-foundation.enabled to switch its value from true to false. Not sure whether this takes effect immediately when you reload the tab you were in or whether you need to restart Firefox before it takes effect.

Does that work for the files you want to download?

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Thanks very much jscher2000, it worked perfectly :)

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Worked great!! Thanks!