New kind of asshole web design screws with PDF downloads. But is it also a browser deficiency? (Hotlink does not show when hovered)

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.

It fucks up wget. Novices outnumber sophisticated users to an extent that advanced users can now be marginalised.

Anyway, what the browser does is worth considering. Chromium and Firefox both show NOTHING when hovering over the hyperlink. Normally we expect to see an URL at the bottom of the window when hovering on something clickable. The browsers show nothing in this case.

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