title: Chrome 65 blocks cross-origin <a download>. Client-side workaround to force download?
body: <p>Chrome 65 removed support for the <code>download</code> attribute <strong>on anchor elements with cross-origin <code>href</code>s</strong>:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <h3>Block cross-origin &lt;a download&gt;</h3>
  <p>To avoid what is essentially a user-mediated cross-origin information leakage, Blink will now ignore the presence of the download attribute on anchor elements with cross origin attributes. Note that this applies to <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLAnchorElement/download" rel="noreferrer"><code>HTMLAnchorElement.download</code></a> as well as to the element itself.</p>
  <p><a href="https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/topic/blink-dev/Iw3_SUcagGg/discussion" rel="noreferrer">Intent to Remove</a> | <a href="https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/4969697975992320" rel="noreferrer">Chromestatus Tracker</a> | <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=714373" rel="noreferrer">Chromium Bug</a></p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>This breaks <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_ek1wSe66o#t=1298" rel="noreferrer" title="Explained by Eric Biedelman at Google I/O 2012 - The Web Can Do That!?">serverless downloads</a> (for cross-origin resources). <s>It has also broken Reddit Enhancement Suite's save image button (<code>.res-media-controls-download</code>)</s> RES v5.12.0 <a href="https://github.com/honestbleeps/Reddit-Enhancement-Suite/commit/87f2ec7bdef7ce5629bd154c615ee6b75e1223c1" rel="noreferrer">fixed this</a> by using the <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/downloads" rel="noreferrer">chrome.downloads API</a> (the extension now requests your permission to <strong>Manage downloads</strong>)</p>
  <p>Any workaround?</p>
  <p>More details in the <a href="https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#downloading-resources" rel="noreferrer">Web spec</a>, thanks @jbmilgrom</p>