*UPDATED* Dev channel update to 88.0.705.9 is live

josh_bodner 

I'd just like to say a big thanks for 'Changed favorite folder flyouts from the Favorites Bar to no longer dismiss when opening a favorite in a new tab'. That's a sine qua non for me with a browser, and something I repeatedly asked for last year and early this year, but gave up as there appeared to be no reaction. It's a big step towards making Edge usable for me as a browser.

Unfortunately it came just one day after I belatedly realised that you've taken a huge step back for me with the downloads experience. Firstly, I need to be able to see info live during a download to keep an eye on how it is doing, like e.g. a display of the speed, which is lacking on the native Edge download shelf. The solution for this was any of a number of extensions in both Edge and Google Chrome extension store that replace the native download shelf with either a custom shelf or a dropdown from a toolbar button that display more info on how the download is doing. But the new 'open. save or save as' selection is on the native download shelf, so using any of the extensions that replace it means the 'open save or save as' doesn't appear on screen at all, leaving all the downloads to stall at 99% without the download completing or the display at any point of the save as dialogue. The only way to get the 'open save or save as' is to additionally go to the ellipsis menu, open the Edge Download page, and perform the 'open save or save as' there with all the assorted extra menu opening and tab swapping. Simply not acceptable.

And then there's the issue of the 'save as' always opening in the 'Downloads' folder. I've seen people complaining that it should open in the last saved to folder. For me it's more than that, because in Firefox it doesn't just remember the last saved-to folder, it separately remembers the last saved-to folder for each file type. I save anything from a few to a lot of files almost every day. Software goes into a sub-directory of one top level directory on my D drive; books into various directories at least 3 levels down from a different top-level directory on my D drive; pictures into at least 3 levels down of a top-level directory on my E drive; video/films at least 4 levels down a different top-level directory on the E drive; 3DCGI assets many levels down in yet another top-level directory on the E drive, etc. With Firefox this is very painless as if I'm downloading an .exe the save as dialogue opens on the D drive sub-sub-directory I save almost all .exes into, whereas if I got to save a jpeg the save as dialogue opens somewhere in whichever sub-sub-sub directory of the E drive I last saved a jpeg to, which will be either the right directory (especially of its one of a sequence I'm saving together) or very close to the folder I want.  This is a HUGE time saver when downloading in Firefox. But as things stand now on Edge, starting with the now extra trip down to the download shelf to pick 'save as' on every download when downloading, say, 20 jpegs is bad enough - there MUST be a way to set 'always save as' in options - but add in navigating in the save as dialogue to a different drive and sub-sub-sub directory every time when downladng 20 jpegs, then 30 .rars or .zips elsewhere is just ... too hideous to contemplate. And as I said, I have downloading sessions pretty much every day.

I'm sorry, but unless you (a) provide a way to set it to always 'save as', or at least deal another way with getting the choice of save destination when an extension is in use that replaces the native download shelf (and the sheer number of extensions that provide replacements for the download shelf in both Google Chrome and Edge extension stores should indicate to you that a fair few users want this), and (b) have Edge remember and employ the last used directory per filetype when opening the save as dialogue, Edge is simply useless for my daily downloading. In fact the only way I can see of using Edge as my browser would be to browse in Edge, but then use the 'Open in Firefox' extension tool button to throw any page I want to download from over to Firefox to do the download in Firefox. But if that, then why not just browse in Firefox? So I will go on with Firefox as my browser for actual use.

Well, I got my favourite bar dropdown menus not closing after opening a favourite in the background a month or two more than a year after I asked, so maybe I'll get a download experience I can actually use sometime early in 2022.