We have the "block download" option on our tenant. Testing with a word document. Some users can click "Open in Word" and it will save a local copy to their desktop. Is this by design?
Block Download will also only work if you are using it with external users. The fact that they have "Open in word" as an option tells me they are most likely tenant users, therefore they probably already have access to the file anyway so they will be allowed to download it. Just a hunch here.
Well it still should work internal as well, but that is assuming they don't already have access to the file by way of permission, if so then that would take affect over the anonymous link. Testing the scenario now to 100% know one way or the other but that's my gut feeling on this.
Yeah, confirmed to be the case, if you have access to the file already, and access it using the link, you will get your explicit permissions over the sharing link permission.
This seems like a limitation/issue with the current version of the feature, I reported it back when I posted my blog post on this. FYI external users also can bypass the restriction, thanks to the new "shared with me" improvements that show cross-tenant files.
To clarify, what I meant is that even external users can simply use the "Open > Open in Word" menu to get a copy of the file. If they try to use the Online client, it's restricted as expected.
