This problem continues to exist on my machine. It just happened again: A few hours ago I clicked on a PDF and it was automatically opened with Foxit, according to the setting. But when I did the same thing a minute ago, the file was downloaded and not opened with Foxit. When I checked the setting it had somehow been set back to "Save file".

Is there any advice how to fix this annoying issue?

hello surf,

is windows also defaulted to open pdf's with your reader?

imo, win10 is interfering with FireFox browser, especially since the MS Edge browser is designed to handle pdf's.

Hi surfguard, is this a private computer, not managed by an IT department? You can check the following internal page to see whether Policies are affecting your download settings:

about:policies

Your Firefox identified itself as version 82, while the current version is 87. Have you been holding off on updating for a specific reason?

Thank you both for your replies! Sadly, they don't solve my problem.

@~dbben Windows is in fact defaulted to open pdf's with Foxit reader. That works without any problems.

@jscher2000 It is not a private computer but I have admin rights and Firefox is afaik not managed by our IT department. about:policies tells me that this service is inactive. Also, my Firefox is up-to-date. My original post is a year old but had not received any reply. I update my Firefox automatically, it's on version 87.0 (64-bit) today and the problem persisted through all updates.

hi surf,

I believe that some of the issues FF is facing is being caused by microsoft's windows o.s., aka the monopoly effect

imo, the fact that FF will not permanently keep your preference when it comes to pdf, could be an advantage for Microsoft because it provides the opportunity for its Edge browser to open and manage pdf's.

perhaps, there is a registry setting that could be modified in windows. but the last time i browsed through the registry's of win10, i concluded life was too short to spend time in untangling the behind-the-scene mess for an itty-bitty modification.

however, i am interested in seeing your issue resolved and possibly how.  :-)

incidentally, just as a test, can you try out the Edge browser and see how it compares to your FireFox issue with pdf's? It's only for curiosity.

Hi ~dbben,

Despite Foxit being my default application for handling PDFs, Edge will open a PDF in a new tab with what appears to be some built-in reader. In any case Edge does not use Foxit which is the only PDF app installed on my machine.

hi surf,

thanks for confirming.

imo, it seems that microsoft is now capitalizing on pdf's.

It is no longer in league with adobe acrobat.

So microsoft has created pdf creation tools inside its microsoft office products. And with the use of its microsoft browser, pdfs can easily be seen without a third party pdf software.

towards this end, i suspect that the issues FF has with pdf's are in part due to microsoft trying to take more control over the management of pdfs.

i've seen this before way back when with the WordPerfect software, whereas M$ made the wordperfect users life frustrating until we all had to switch over to Office.