Here in meta.discourse.org, my link above opens in the same tab as this page (just like you describe). This is unchanged in safe-mode.
However, on three of my recently updated sites (with the TC disabled) it attempts a download. This is also the case with safe-mode. I’m not sure why that is. I can’t see any site settings that govern this at all.
Whatever the reason, my fork fixes it for my sites nicely!
This makes no sense to me!!