Open Bug 1626735 Opened 6 years ago Updated 3 years ago

Option to launch an executable program (after downloading it to a temp dir) instead of only downloading it

Categories

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
File Handling
Version:
74 Branch
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

Status:
UNCONFIRMED

People

(Reporter: claudius.ellsel, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:74.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0

Steps to reproduce:

Open a site and click on a download of an executable file

Actual results:

A menu opens offering the option to save that file

Expected results:

Another option to run that file should be available

This is basically pretty much related, probably even a duplicate of #91969. Since that bug is closed since 17 years, I thought I'd better open a new bug for this.

From what I read, possible security concerns might have been the reason for not adding this functionality (however I am not entirely sure). However, since this might come up again, some possibilities to handle this:

  • Make save option default and (maybe only change after the user selected the run option once)
  • Display a warning like when selecting an executable file from the downloads menu

Also, to be clear, I only want to have an option to run the executable, I don't want to immediately download and run it without any menu asking what to do after clicking the link.

Component: Untriaged → Downloads API
Product: Firefox → Toolkit

Yes, the main reason is security concerns. Note you can download it and then launch it from the Downloads Panel.
This may be a duplicate, but didn't find the older bug yet.

Component: Downloads API → File Handling
Product: Toolkit → Firefox

Sorry it took me some time to get back.

Regarding the security concerns, can you elaborate a bit on the details? This is such a broad term that it could be used like a killer phrase to dismiss most features.

Regarding the ability to download it and launch from the download panel afterwards: I'd like to have it downloaded to maybe a temp location like it is done with other files like word documents that I chose to open instead of saving. Also it requires additional steps, so it makes the process less straightforward.

Regarding duplicate, I mentioned one 17 year old issue above. I guess, I did not find a more current one, either.

Severity: normal → S3
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