Understanding and managing downloads in firefox based browsers

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GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Using both Abrowser and Tor Browser (both firefox based) I noticed that sometimes when I download a file, it will generate a "file.extension.part" that increases in size until it finishes the download and transforms into "file.extension" (which was created as a 0 bytes file initially). Some other times it won't, instead creating the "file.extension" right away and filling it up until it finished. Why does it happen?

Also, and this is the important part, sometimes when the download fails for some reason, the ".part" file is deleted, some other times it isn't. How can I prevent it from being deleted? The reason for wanting that is because 1) sometimes the partial download might be enough for whatever I am doing at the time and 2) using the ".part" file I can sometimes resume the broken download from that point instead of restarting it from the begining.

Any help greatly appreciated.
I know one could use DTA or some other download manager but I am interested in "Firefox" own built-in download manager.

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

Just curious, why?

Are you trying to do this?

http://www.devarticles.in/miscelleneous/resume-download-of-part-extension-file-in-firefox/

For whatever reason, I'm glad anyway that you brought this subject up. While googling I found out that this simple workaround seems to work resuming failed downloads.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Yes exactly. In regular Firefox/Abrowser it's ok to use DTA! or some other download manager. BUT in Tor Browser it's better not to risk it (a bug in DTA, present or future, could deanonymize the user). So I am trying to use this trick to manage broken downloads.

I am curious as if there is any option in the about:config of firefox that allows me to have better control over this. A web search wasn't very fruitful so I am hoping someone with more knowledge will be able to help.
THANKS

jules_verne
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Joined: 01/02/2017

Idk about the browser, but you can use "wget -c" to continue a Download if you have to stop for whatever reason. I never encountered a situation where this didn't work.

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

I know both curl and wget have the option to resume downloads, but this is supposed to be used on websites that you really have to download from the browser. Or if you just want to use the browser for some reason.

libreleah
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Joined: 04/03/2017

this can be quite useful with videos sometimes. you can play the .part in a media player while it downloads, so you're basically streaming