In about:config set the following to false: browser.download.alwaysOpenPanel

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/98.0/releasenotes/

Being a novice, I have no idea what "about:config" is or how to get there. It would be helpful if you would anticipate that and give just a smidge more help. That would take you less time than it did for me to figure out what in the world that meant and how to get there. Eventually I did figure it out.

So I finally got there, pressed Ctrl+f and pasted "browser.download.alwaysOpenPanel" in the search for box. Text not found. Removed the word "browser" and tried again, still: Text not found. So FireFox cannot search the page it loads with "about:config"? How dumb is that?! I know I can scroll, but that takes forever. Also just FYI, one doesn't set that to false, one clicks on an unfamiar icon to toggle it to false. More dumbness by FireFox. But those (like yourself) who help on the User Forum need to use the "terminology" in the browser.

Why would FireFox update the browser and turn this feature ON with no indication of how to turn it Off. Why not just mention the feature in a Whats New blurb with the way to turn it ON, and leave the program alone. This is starting to become a lot like MS and their continual fixing of things that are not broken in Windows and Office (and ignoring things that ARE broken or annoying)!

David

Thanks, terry21. Like most JS interfaces, the page isn't exactly presented as an interface, so David's point taken. Not very defensible though, to have a blank screen with nothing but an input box and decide not to use it.

I felt the need to comment because having that download list feature turned on by default screams "look what I made." I thought we were advanced beyond the "do this" then "okay" then "are you sure" generation, but here's a perfect example of it creeping back. I can imagine somebody asking for some indication that the download is working or finished, but it only took one download for me to realize the icon and colour served as an annunciator, so it's brazen how that was established as too meaningless. Then, here I am with a me-too after being so annoyed with the download display I didn't even bother investigating how to get rid of it.

Would probably help if "Show All" was displayed as a button instead of text. I also wandered around too many seconds before understanding, my first visit. The list is so fast to appear I'm worried it was deemed necessary to hide it, but it is another layer to avoid an oopsy with the click-happy crowd.

I'm happy with what's inside once I'm in there though; just took a couple of selections to understand what was happening, but always intimidating to reach for the mouse after marching through a "you're going to wreck something" warning.