Every time I download a PDF file, it directly opens in Brave.
Since I have several PDF viewers installed on my tablet, I don’t need Brave to open them at all, let alone load huge PDF file and create even more cached data.
This happens only on my tablet and I couldn’t find any option to disable PDF auto viewer, not even in brave://flags.
Steps to Reproduce
click on any PDF link and it will open in Brave (so that you can read it in Brave. Totally useless to me.)
Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):
Android 13, v1.80.124, Chromium 138.0.7204.168
Go to Settings > Apps, select your current PDF viewer, tap Open by default, and choose Clear defaults. The next time you open a PDF, pick your preferred app and set it as default.
Setting a default app is not a problem. I don’t have a default app for PDF files anyway.
The real problem is: why does Brave open PDFs in the new tab?
I’ll need to open them in Private tab until Brave devs add an option to disable this useless feature, as it were a desktop browser.
I think you gave yourself the answer. “I don’t have a default app for PDF files anyway.” Some application must open PDF files, which is in your case Brave as default app, I think.
A few months ago, I remember I turned off “Open PDF with Brave” or something like that. Now, it auto open them.
If you download a .jpg file or .apk, you are not asked to open them in your default image viewer or installer.
As I said above, I don’t need to open/read PDFs in Brave and they load up awfully slow anyway.
The above just skirts around the issue and is not the solution. PDF’s automatically open in the browser regardless of PDF viewers being installed, defaults set and reset, ‘Automatically open when possible‘ turned off. PDF’s don’t download, they don’t save, they just OPEN in the browser and that’s it!
@b2025b@RiverStone out of curiosity, did you change the setting in Brave? In Brave’s settings → downloads there’s a toggle for Automatically open PDFs.
I was going to toy around on my old Android to see if this is the solution but I’m out of time and can’t mess with it right now.
Thanks for the reply. I use Beta v1.82. 145 but this didn’t used to happen (a while ago now though). The toggle in ‘Downloads’ is the one as I described,
‘Automatically open when possible‘ which is off, there is no separate option for PDF’s.
@RiverStone I could have done a screen recording directly from the Android phone, but I didn’t feel like switching between multiple devices. In this video, you can see me downloading the PDFs and opening (or choosing not to open) them on my old Android. I also show the setting does appear in Brave Beta.
I’m not sure why your situation would be different if you don’t see that setting, but here’s a short video I uploaded. If I’ve misunderstood anything, please let me know.
@RiverStone it’s interesting. I just completely removed Brave Beta from my phone and had cleared all data just beforehand. Then I installed it again as if it’s the first time I had it, but the setting was there.
I don’t think there’s anything that can be changed that would matter, but do you have anything changed at brave://flags?
And I guess let me tag in @Mattches to see if he can guide on this.
Looks like this was removed upstream for some reason. I’ve opened the following issue for this – I think that Android team will be happy to reimplment this flag. Note that it will likely be the flag itself (brave://flags) and not the in-browser settings but the behavior will be the same:
@mattches Your reply does seem to hit on much of what OP was mentioning, but I am questioning some of the rest of the conversation after that initial post.
On that I was able to open in an external app. It had to download first rather than just opening.
Would think if removed upstream then would have impacted it as well. Essentially am wondering if this toggle I have but @RiverStone doesn’t could also be one of the areas to handle it.
Anyway, seems like it’s two separate but related issues, so thought I’d tag to try to get it figured out.
Thanks for the update and I well remember the flag. It may well have been when it was pulled this issue for me started but I honestly can’t remember.
Anyway, thanks again and
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Downloads 
