That's strange. You've had this for 18 months now? I don't even get anything like that for EXE files (on Windows).

Could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? In its Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, any userChrome.css/userContent.css files, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any difference?

Meant to ask:

Can you bypass the message if you:

• click the folder icon to the right of the download on Firefox's list to open the containing folder with the PDF selected in the list
• press the Enter/Return key to launch the PDF from that folder

Not that you should have to -- but to check whether it's an attribute of the file that may have been added during downloading.

(deleted, missed that the OP is on Linux)

On Linux, an executable file would have the 'x' bit set. I don't know why this bit would have to get set on files you download.

This additional file extension is a little odd:

kede81 said

For reference: the pdf definition in PROFILE/handlers.json is: "application/pdf":{"action":0,"extensions":["pdf","pdf;jsessionid=2c7663ad9dfe3b68a1b43d20aa96b70f"],"ask":true}

Does this problem only occur on sites where the file extension is perceived as more than just .pdf ?

How about this very basic link: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/temp/userChrome_css.pdf

What is the default application for PDF ?

• xdg-mime query default application/pdf

Most of my downloads go into the Downloads folder. These files are created 664 (-rw-rw-r--). I download some files into a Veracrypt volume where they appear to have 700 (-rwx------) and chmod -x has no effect. But the popup appears on all PDFs regardless of the file mode.

Note that if I choose "Open with: Atril Document Viewer (default)" instead of "Save File", the popup does not appear.

as requested: $ xdg-mime query default application/pdf atril.desktop

I am convinced that my userChrome.css has no relevance: $ cat userChrome.css @namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* Global UI font */

• { font-size: 13pt !important;

 font-family: "Liberation Sans Narrow", Calibri !important ; 

} /*.tab-label-container { font-family: "Liberation Sans Narrow" !important; }*/ /* Hide Giant Thumbnail on Edit Bookmark Panel */

1. editBookmarkPanelImage {

 display: none !important;

} /* Move Favicon up and Name down */

1. editBookmarkPanelFavicon {

 margin-top: 4px !important;

}

1. editBookmarkPanelContent {

 padding-top: 40px !important;

}

But my profile has a really long hostory including a platform change from Windows to Linux. This may also explain the spurious additional "extension" listed for pdf (but all PDFs from many download sites are affected so that is not the reason). I will try the safe mode at the next convenient occasion. The responses already seem to indicate to me that this is likely not a global feature applying to everyone, so I am more hopeful now that it can be fixed by examining my setup.

Also, thanks for mentioning userContent.css, which I was not previously aware of but I will experiment with in the future.

Thanks for the info.

userChrome.css and userContent.css shouldn't affect downloaded files, but I wanted to let you know what is changed in Firefox's Safe Mode so it's less of a surprise and you don't get distracted by having to deal with the default interface.

I don't know whether it would make any difference, but you could remove that extra array item in handlers.json (and the comma preceding it) to see whether that makes any difference. Mine is:

"application/pdf":{"action":2,"extensions":["pdf"],"ask":true}

You have action 0 and I have action 2, but I don't think that should affect this issue. The action parameter can have these values:

0 = Save to File (default) 1 = Always ask 2 = Use a specified helper app 3 = Handle internally (for example, PDF Viewer) 4 = Use system default app

If the ask parameter is set to true, that seems to override the action parameter.

It is likely that when ask=true, action=0 or 2 cache the most recently used choice, so that the radiobutton can be pre-set accordingly. This would be the natural place where to remember that choice.

The pdf;jsessionid=2c7663ad9dfe3b68a1b43d20aa96b70f is already present in a backup from 20181012 so it is unlikely to be of any practical use any more. I assume it is advisable to only edit this file while Firefox is not running.

Yes, only while Firefox is not running. Otherwise, Firefox may well overwrite your changes.

Meanwhile I was indeed able to track it down to executable being set. So my earlier assumption that it applies regardless of file mode was mistaken, and I apologize for it. I save most of my downloads into a Veracrypt volume which does not support Unix permissions and is mounted with all items being -rwx------ mode. I was able to work around the issue by using the mount option "fmask=177" (initially I foolishly set "umask=177" and could not change into any directories) but assuming I also had executables in that volume, that wouldn't be an option. I think looking at the file's executable bit is generally irrelevant when Firefox passes the filename as an argument to an external program, because the executable bit only has relevance if a filename is passed as arg0 to the exec function, which Firefox certainly doesn't when it is a parameter to the configured PDF handler, in my case atril. When atril opens the file with fopen() the executablöe bit makes no difference. Even if the handler were e.g. perl, given a script as an argument does not require the executable bit and it will be executed exactly the same whether it is set or not. So looking at the executable ("x") bit of the file and issuing a warning in this case is logically flawed.