Why does chrome save every pdf to downloads

I think I found a working solution by adjusting preferences in Acrobat and not Chrome.

I unchecked under the "Internet" preferences in Adobe Acrobat. (See below)

After doing so, I am given a "Save as" window popup 1) when I click on a link to a PDF in Chrome and 2) when I click to download a PDF email attachment -- both as desired.

An explanation of this setting from helpx.adobe.com:

Allow Speculative Downloading In The Background: Choose to allow the browser to continue downloading PDF pages from the web, even after the first page displays.

^{One downside: it's taking significantly longer to load this "Save as" window vs just a few weeks ago when I last had a PDF successfully open the same window. What used to take 2-3 seconds is taking more like 12-20 seconds to load. So I'm not sure if there are additional adjustments or fixes to further improve upon the working solution I describe here.}