WHAT THE FUCK? Firefox 98 “download improvements” And How To Turn It Off

TLDR: How to turn it off: in about:config set browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel to false

The new download behavior is pretty crazy in fresh Firefox 98. Changes I noticed:

• no file.zip.part, it generates a random 13(?) character string
• automatically opens files like mkv or xlsx
• downloads without asking even if there is dialog to set to always ask

It is very disturbing when file opens automatically after 2 hours of download. Random file name doesn’t make sense. Even though I download almost everything into ~/Downloads/, I like the ask dialog (it depends on which computer/OS). For me, not a big deal to press Enter or Esc.

Overall this feature is half-assed and rationale behind it is very weak. Usefulness like gesture control in Android 12. Whyyyy?

Source of howto turn it off: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/tdohiy/firefox_98_download_manager_support_thread/