Ubuntu
xdg-user-dirs package

  1. Bug #204567
  2. Comment #14

Comment 14 for bug 204567

Revision history for this message
Lei Zhang (thestig-google) wrote : Re: downloads should go to $HOME/Downloads : XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR should be set to "$HOME/Downloads"

As one more reason to switch away from ~/Desktop, .desktop files are attack vectors for malware. [3] Saving them to ~/Desktop just makes it worse.

[3] http://cubist.cs.washington.edu/Security/2009/03/13/linux-desktop-security-vulnerabilities/