How do I stop Chrome from automatically opening PDF links?
Chrome used to automatically save files when I clicked on them, including PDFs. This is the behaviour I want to go back to. Now on Chrome beta 56.0.2924.28 when I click on PDF links it automatically opens in my PDF viewer and nothing I've tried to get the old behaviour back has worked.
I have Chrome's built-in PDF viewer disabled in about:plugins. I've gone to advanced settings and clicked clear auto-opening settings. I've even tried alt+click which forces links to save, but it still just automatically opens PDFs. This is a security risk and I need to fix this.
I'm on Linux so this isn't some 3rd-party setting from Adobe or anything.
I've noticed another thing: I have never chosen to always open files of this type for anything, but in advanced settings above the clear button it says: You have chosen to open certain file types automatically after downloading. Clicking the clear button has no effect on this.
Edit: Actually, even if I right+click and choose download link it automatically opens my PDF viewer after choosing the location! I think this must be a bug.
Solution 1:
This behavior can be switched off, only the setting is a bit hidden:
- Go to chrome://settings/content
- Scroll down to "PDF Documents"
- Uncheck "Open PDF files in the default PDF viewer application"