The simple concept of linking to a PDF has been enshitified in so many ways of fuckery lately. The linked page has a download link that triggers the fetching of some JavaScript download manager garbage that demands agreeing to, idk, probably something that legally fucks you in a variety of ways.

But what the browser does is worth considering. Chromium and Firefox both show NOTHING when hovering over the hyperlink. Normally I expect to see an URL at the bottom of the window when hovering on something clickable. The browsers do nothing.

Is that a smart design? Shouldn’t the browser signal to the user “clicking this executes JavaScript?”