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Usually, whenever I download a zip file or other archive, the browser (Firefox/Brave/Chrome) would prompt me for where to download the file to. Then it downloads the file. And that's it. Then I would normally open Nautilus to the folder, right click on the archive and select "Extract here", which would create a new folder containing the archive's contents.

However, during an update, this behavior has changed. Now after the download is complete, the browser launches Archive Manager, showing a preview of the archive's contents, which a button saying "Extract". If I press "Extract", it shows a folder selector, which causes the archive's contents to be dumped into that folder.

This is very frustrating. As a general rule, the browser should never execute an archive, nor force me to dump it's contents without creating a new folder. How do I restore the old behavior?

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  • Did you check in Preferences - Applications what is set for an archive file? It can be set to "save file" in case it will (should) only prompt for the file location (unless you configure to always save in downloads under "Downloads"). For you, it may be currently set to open with Archive manager.
    – vanadium
    Jul 7, 2020 at 15:26

1 Answer 1

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Click the hamburger menu (button with three horizontal lines on the right of the address bar) and select "Preferences". Under the section Applications, search "archive". All "archive" file types appear. Set the "Action" to "save file" to have Firefox default to saving the archive instead of opening it in Archive manager.

To eliminate any prompt and have the files automatically downloaded in, e.g., your Downloads folder, check the Downloads section just before the Applications section. select the option "Save files to...". If you want to decide each time where the download goes, select the second option "Always ask you where to save files".

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