difficult to find and could disappear in the future if you or a cleaning application you use deletes the temporary folder to conserve space on your computer. This might not seem like a big deal, but it's easy to wander into a trap. For example, say you choose to open the document with the intent to read it, but then decide you need to correct a few things. When you try to save the file, Word doesn't ask you where to save it because it already exists at a temporary location. However, you certainly don't want to save your new copy to this location because it's hard to find and might be deleted later on! You could work around that problem by choosing the Save As command in Word and saving the revised copy to a permanent location on your computer. But the best solution is to use the Save to Disk command in Firefox instead of Open With when you download a file that you need for long-term use. A good way to remember this is to think of Open With as writing the information you're downloading to a fortune cookie label. Would you save important information to that tiny strip of paper? Of course not! You'd save it to a memorable and easily accessible location, such as your computer's desktop.     Bypassing the download decision window If you download frequently and stick with the same set of options, you might find the download decision window, which asks you how and where to download the file, to be too distracting. If so, select the check box at the bottom to instruct Firefox not to display the window again when you download files of the given type in the future. For example, if you select Open With: Microsoft Word for the document and then select this check box, Firefox automatically opens all future documents in Word without asking as soon as you choose to download them. Tip You can override this default behavior by right-clicking links to files you want to save and choosing Save Link As from the contextual menu as I discuss in "Overriding default actions with Save Link" later in this chapter.   If you change your mind later on, you can change which default action Firefox takes or instruct it to start asking you again: 1. 2. Click the Downloads icon at the top of the window. 3. Under Download Actions at the bottom, select View & Edit Actions to open the Download Actions window, shown in Figure 11-3. Figure 11-3: The Download Actions window provides an overview of default down loading actions. Any files that Firefox handles for you automatically upon downloading are listed here. Notice that Firefox contains a long list of automatic actions by default; these are to enable the use of browser plug-ins, as I describe in "Plugging along with plug-ins" later in this chapter. 4. Select the file type in the list whose default action you want to change. To find the item quickly in the list, type part of the file type. For example, type word for Microsoft Word documents. Note that search phrases must be lowercased. 5. To remove the default action, click the Remove Action button at the bottom. Firefox asks you to confirm the decision; if you do so, it takes effect immediately. For example, if Firefox was set to open Word documents in Word automatically when you download them, Firefox will prompt you each time you download a Word document in the future. Tip Note that for the built-in file types that are handled by plug-ins, this button is unavailable. You can't remove the automatic handling for file types, although you can change how it behaves, as I describe in Step 6. See