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Prevent automatic downloads in Android

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Problem: I search for something in Google or wherever and click on a result that looks right. Now a PDF automatically downloads and saves to my phone. What if this were malware? What if I don't want the PDF saved to my phone? ex: search for Census PDF in Google. Click on any of the first few links (they are all PDFs). Result: Android says Download saved and asks if I want to open it (no prompt beforehand asking if I want to download this random link).

Tried: searched forever for a solution. In Windows, you can just go to Options and choose the Always Ask where to Save, or Always Ask or whatever, so that it will prompt you before downloading. I didn't realize Android wasn't set up this way already. I hoped that could be done in Android but it can't. Not even by changing some of the browser.download options in about:config.

Hopes: this can be like expedited for the next release. I guess maybe in most cases people know what PDFs they are downloading, but I am sure there has to be other people clicking a search result in Google without knowing that instead of a website, a PDF downloads (didn't even take me to the website either). PDFs tend to be a big medium for malware so it would be ideal for Firefox security purposes to at least prompt a user "do you want to download this file?" regardless of asking where to save.

Let me know your thoughts. In the meantime I guess I will hope I don't click any URLs that end up being PDFs haha. Thank you!

Problem: I search for something in Google or wherever and click on a result that looks right. Now a PDF automatically downloads and saves to my phone. What if this were malware? What if I don't want the PDF saved to my phone? ex: search for Census PDF in Google. Click on any of the first few links (they are all PDFs). Result: Android says Download saved and asks if I want to open it (no prompt beforehand asking if I want to download this random link). Tried: searched forever for a solution. In Windows, you can just go to Options and choose the Always Ask where to Save, or Always Ask or whatever, so that it will prompt you before downloading. I didn't realize Android wasn't set up this way already. I hoped that could be done in Android but it can't. Not even by changing some of the browser.download options in about:config. Hopes: this can be like expedited for the next release. I guess maybe in most cases people know what PDFs they are downloading, but I am sure there has to be other people clicking a search result in Google without knowing that instead of a website, a PDF downloads (didn't even take me to the website either). PDFs tend to be a big medium for malware so it would be ideal for Firefox security purposes to at least prompt a user "do you want to download this file?" regardless of asking where to save. Let me know your thoughts. In the meantime I guess I will hope I don't click any URLs that end up being PDFs haha. Thank you!

All Replies (1)

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Just wanted to check if there were any suggestions or thoughts. I don't think there is a solution for this issue, or at least not anything feasible. For now I am using Brave browser on my phone because it does have a setting to disable automatic downloads, but I don't necessarily want to use it going forward. Let me know if you need anything else from me. Thanks.