Google Chrome forcing download of “f.txt” file

Question

After updating to Chrome 40.0.2214.111, variably when I visit certain Google related sites (like http://youtube.com and get presented with an ad before the video), the browser d

Answer 1

I experienced the same issue, same version of Chrome though it's unrelated to the issue. With the developer console I captured an instance of the request that spawned this, and it is an API call served by ad.doubleclick.net. Specifically, this resource returns a response with Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="f.txt".

The URL I happened to capture was https://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N7412.226578.VEVO/B8463950.115078190;sz=300x60...

Per curl:

$ curl -I 'https://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N7412.226578.VEVO/B8463950.115078190;sz=300x60;click=https://2975c.v.fwmrm.net/ad/l/1?s=b035&n=10613%3B40185%3B375600%3B383270&t=1424475157058697012&f=&r=40185&adid=9201685&reid=3674011&arid=0&auid=&cn=defaultClick&et=c&_cc=&tpos=&sr=0&cr=;ord=435266097?'
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
P3P: policyref="https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/gcn_p3p_.xml", CP="CURa ADMa DEVa TAIo PSAo PSDo OUR IND UNI PUR INT DEM STA PRE COM NAV OTC NOI DSP COR"
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:35:38 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: Fri, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
Content-Type: text/javascript; charset=ISO-8859-1
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="f.txt"
Server: cafe
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Set-Cookie: test_cookie=CheckForPermission; expires=Fri, 20-Feb-2015 23:50:38 GMT; path=/; domain=.doubleclick.net
Alternate-Protocol: 443:quic,p=0.08
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Accept-Ranges: none
Vary: Accept-Encoding