Cross-browser link to file on local system

Question

I would like to make a link from a web page to a file on a local filesystem and make it work in all browsers (or at least in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome).

For example, the following works in Internet Explorer:

<a href="\\myserver\doc\info.pdf">Info here</a>

but not in Firefox and Chrome.

Is there a way to make a link that works in all browsers?

Or a way to use javascript to detect which browser it is and then display the appropriate link based on the filename?

Panjandrum

Not that this is pure conjecture, but files "downloaded" from the local file system from a network share typically have different security attributes than ones downloaded from a web server. This might thus be seen as a way to circumvent security, and might very well not be allowed at all in other browsers. – Vipul

Similar question on SuperUser with more details: How do I instruct Firefox to allow me to open file:/// URLs on a localhost-server http:// webpage?. – Cauterant

Answer 1

Links to local files on pages that were retrieved via HTTP(S) are deliberately disabled in Mozilla/Firefox, because they can be a security risk, and have been used in attacks in the past.

You can override this behaviour, however. For details, see this article in MozillaZine.

Cauterant

Very old but anyway, since I've got an issue with this: why is this a security issue? why is it more a problem compare to download the same file via HTTP? – Galla

@Rafiki: The linked article lists some risks. If you want to know more, this sounds like an excellent new question. Consider asking it as such on security.stackexchange.com . – Cauterant

Answer 2

try prefixing your url with file:///

Cinchona

You'll also need to convert the back slashes to forward slashes, thus your example would be file://///myserver/doc/info.pdf. This is covered in the link sleske gave in his answer. – Beseech