As you noticed, Firefox 98 changed from saving downloads in the Windows Temp folder for "Open with [relevant application]" to saving them in your default downloads folder. It's not possible to pass a file to an application without saving it somewhere.

This change addressed problems with data loss for users who could not re-download files they forgot to save after they were removed from the Temp folder. However, now users who preferred those files to be "out of sight, out of mind" are faced with the task of cleaning them up manually.

Cleaning Up. Rather than read through the Downloads folder, it may be faster to use the "Delete" item on the right-click context menu for items on the Downloads list. That deletes the file from disk and leaves a notation on the history that the file is missing/removed. You can use that to remove files you do not want to keep. But yes, it's an extra step.

Future Updates Uncertain. Many users have expressed the view that they preferred Firefox using the Temp folder for "Open with [relevant application]". I don't know whether a new option will be added for that in a later version.

Workaround? What I'm doing for now is this set of settings:

(1) Change the default download folder to a "temp" folder I created (2) Set Firefox to always ask where I want to save a file so I can choose a real folder when I want to keep the file

On the Settings page, it looks like this:

Thanks for the info and advice. However sorry to say this is not a clean way to help those folks who cannot download a file more than once. They should learn to save it at the “ask” prompt.

I hope this gets a proper fix soon in a future upgrade so it logically follows the options in settings.

In the meantime it’s a lot of work deleting files I don’t need to save. For sensitive files (like bank statements) that I really don’t want saved I then need to go to the Recycle Bin to delete them again!

In the meantime it’s a lot of work deleting files I don’t need to save. For sensitive files (like bank statements) that I really don’t want saved I then need to go to the Recycle Bin to delete them again!

Using the right-click > Delete method on the downloads list permanently deletes files; they do not go into the Recycle Bin.

If you are deleting in Windows' File Explorer, you can hold the Shift key while pressing Delete to delete files permanently and bypass the Recycle Bin.