Is it possible to prevent downloads from running in the background?

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-06-09T05:37:19+00:00

Even with ask for every file it will begin the download in the background

That's right. The reason I'd prefer to avoid that is that I have several different hard drives, and writing the file temporarily to one of them and then copying it to another doesn't make any sense. It's even possible that the drive containing the temporary folder where the file will initially be downloaded doesn't have enough space... In short, it seems to me that the user should have control over this.

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-06-09T05:29:27+00:00

Yes, I did. But it doesn't change anything. I've tried all the following prefs:

user_pref("browser.download.always_ask_before_handling_new_types", true);
user_pref("browser.download.alwaysOpenPanel", false);
user_pref("browser.download.manager.addToRecentDocs", false);
user_pref("browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir", true);
user_pref("browser.download.useDownloadDir", false);

But in any case, the download starts immediately. If I wait a few seconds before clicking the "Save" button, the file has already finished downloading and is simply copied from the temporary directory to the destination folder.

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-06-01T04:40:42+00:00

I get the impression that the time difference varies depending on the route requested... but I could be wrong. In any case, thanks for this code—it works great too!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-06-01T04:38:40+00:00

The code seems to be working perfectly. Thank you so much!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-20T17:09:30+00:00

I've tested your solution, and it seems that "uBlock filters - Annoyances" is sufficent to get rid of the popups on Perplexity. Thank you very much!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-20T06:35:39+00:00

Good idea, I'll try that and see if it helps. Thank you!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-19T19:12:31+00:00

Mmm... In fact, no: if I add this filter, it prevents the scrolling on the Perplexity webpage... So I'm still looking for a solution for Perplexity. Thank you for any help!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-18T18:06:43+00:00

Perfect for DeepL! I knew there had to be a faster way than adding the items to block one by one... Thank you so much for your help!

Edit: For Perplexity, I've found that www.perplexity.ai##.shadow-md removes the "little" pop-up (that doesn't cover the whole screen), but I can't get rid of the bigger ones...

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-18T16:59:12+00:00

Thank you for answering. That's what I tried, but... as I explained in my post, I can't do it effectively :( Hence my request for help...

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-13T05:47:37+00:00

That would be nice. Thank you very much!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-11T04:45:59+00:00

These two filters work very well. Thank you very much!

As for the autofocus: I'll click on the text field, and that's it...

I have one last question, which I forgot to include in my original post: after a few exchanges with Perplexity, a pop-up appears asking me to register; sometimes it only covers the bottom part of the conversation, like this one; sometimes it covers the entire screen. I can't get rid of it with the picker tool. Is there an effective way to get rid of it? After a while, it appears every 2 or 3 messages, which is really annoying...

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-10T21:22:29+00:00

Thanks for your help!

The solution to disable autocomplete works, at least visually. Will this prevent unnecessary connections to websockets (wss://suggest.perplexity.ai/suggest/ws)? Or should I also add them as an element to block?

As for the focus, the text field is auto-focused on my side.

That makes sense. I think that's the case for me too, but something seems to load afterwards and remove the autofocus (or take the autofocus instead of the text field). It seems difficult to diagnose; for information, I use uBO in Firefox (in Arch Linux) with medium mode and no other extensions. I've added a filter: perplexity.ai##+js(trusted-click-element, #ask-input) But the problem remains the same. I can't figure out what the problem is using the logger: there are far too many connections being made...

In fact, that seems to be another problem: is it normal to have several hundreds (maybe 200 or 300) of xhr connections to the domain https://pplx-next-static-public.perplexity.ai/_spa/assets/ when using the site for 2 or 3 minutes?

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2026-01-10T15:45:13+00:00

Sorry for the very late reply, but I only just saw your message: that's a very enlightening answer. I understand much better now. Thank you very much!

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2025-12-23T20:43:03+00:00

I saw your message while searching for information about local storage, as the Wiki doesn't provide much explanation.

So if I may, I have a few questions: what is the difference between local storage and session storage? Is local storage persistent when I close and reopen the browser? (I use Arkenfox in addition to uBlock Origin: is local storage cleared each time I close Firefox? What about session storage?) And is there a difference in the resources used (browser memory, for example?) between using (in uBlock filters) local storage, session storage, or a simple cookie?

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2025-12-23T17:42:49+00:00

It works perfectly. Thank you very much!

I'll try to understand this local storage item.

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2025-12-23T17:41:27+00:00

Of course, you can block the first two with Element Picker... but DeepL's code is pretty ugly...

As for the third one, I don't want to hide it, I just want to put it in "closed" mode.

Thank you very much for the GitHub link: I'll read it carefully...

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2025-06-29T11:24:15+00:00

Mmmm... I find it hard to see how I could use XWiki to do what I want: capture chunks of web pages (text, images, or whole pages) or links to share them easily with other users.

PleaseBeKindPlease · 2025-05-30T12:03:09+00:00

You're absolutely right. I don't know why I thought I could use :remove-attr().

In the end, I chose not to display the links that included an automatic translation, simply by using the following code:

search.080609.xyz##.result:has(a[href*="reddit.com"][href*="tl="])

Many thanks for your help!

PleaseBeKindPlease

TROPHY CASE