Firefox now keeps my tabs when I close the browser if file manager is still open. Can I turn this off?
Used to be if I closed the browser while file manager was open it would close that session, and when I opened Firefox again, it would have a brand new session with the home page. Now I just get the same session as if I had only minimized the browser instead of closing it. Is there a way to change that?
All Replies (7)
Did you try to use Firefox (or File) > Exit to close Firefox?
No, I just use the x in the upper right corner. I never ever use the File -> Exit. It's a hassle compared to the x.
Using the close X on the title bar only closes the current window. Using File (Firefox) > Exit closes all open windows and closes the Firefox program. Using that menu item avoids surprises if you discover too late that there are other windows still open and that session restore won't restore them the next time.
If I do that, would that also stop my download? This only occurs when the download manager is open and I'm downloading something. In the old version of Firefox I would have the download manager on, but I could still click the x to close the browser window and if I opened it again, it would have a new session.
Modified by sinsofangels
You can set the pref browser.download.manager.quitBehavior to 2 on the about:config page.
That will make Firefox ask for confirmation if you want to cancel the download if you close Firefox.
See:
To open the about:config page, type about:config in the location (address) bar and press the "Enter" key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.
I tried that but if I don't cancel the download, then nothing closes. What I want is for download manager to stay open and the browser to close and start a new session.
You can't start a new session without closing Firefox completely and that includes closing all open windows. So you need to close the download manager if you really want to start with a fresh browser session and purge all in use memory.