Why does Firefox not save downloaded files as compressed on my compressed hard drive?
I have a compressed hard drive. When I save files (e.g., a downloaded PDF) from other browsers, the file is saved in compressed format (just like all new files I create on the computer). But, files saved from Firefox are not compressed. Is there a setting to change this behavior, or is it just a bug in Firefox?
All Replies (7)
Currently you are using an older version of Firefox.
If possible, please update Firefox to the most recent version.
This issue may have been patched by one of our previous versions.
What Firefox 26 seems to do is save the file to the TEMP folder and then perform a directory move. If your TEMP folder is compressed, then this might help in your scenario. I haven't tested it.
Firefox 26 has replaced the old code related to saving files. Even if there is a bug in Firefox 23, that old code isn't going to be fixed, you would need to file a bug showing the problem in Firefox 26 or newer.
Updating to v27.0 does not fix this issue.
Interesting idea. I made sure all Temp directories were compressed, but the downloads are still uncompressed. :(
That's not good. I wonder whether EFS folder level encryption also might not be getting applied? (I can't test that on this system.)
This problem is mentioned in an old bug relating to EFS: Bug 483192 – Downloaded files don't inherit NTFS encryption properties from parent folder/directory. That hasn't seen much action over the years.
Although it's generally not helpful to add comments to active bugs, perhaps describing your experiment with compressing the TEMP folder will be helpful in pointing out a new wrinkle on this problem, since I believe it has been assumed up to now that would solve the problem.
Thanks for your input, jscher2000. I have entered a comment into the bug report.