207154 - Option to change mime-type

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 220807

(SeaMonkey :: Download & File Handling, defect)

Description

[Biju]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030504 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030504 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

Many sites may have wrong mime-type
see http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/composer/cascades02.xpi

If we have an option to change the mime-type while doing download it will be
better than arguing author to change mime-type or waiting for somebody to do
change mime-type before we download.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Biju]

Another example
http://malayalamanorama.com/manoramafont/Manorama.ttf
from 
http://malayalamanorama.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=manorama/Page/bottomtemplate&c=Page&cid=1003752532618&lang=mal#FAQ1

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Mozilla requests URL -> Server sends header with the mime-type -> Mozilla
decides what to do with this document (link 1: Render it)

You can't change the mime-type if Mozilla already decided to render it.
You can always use "right click/save Link Target as" to save it.

Mozilla will not ignore the mime-type and we can't change it after we started to
download it -> wontifx

Comment 3

[Biju]

I tried "right click/save Link Target as" but it is corrupting
http://malayalamanorama.com/manoramafont/Manorama.ttf and finally I used IE to
download it.

If it is supposed to work by "right click/save Link Target as". Then there will
a bug in "Save Target as" of  Mozilla Firebird

Comment 4

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 207174 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Jamie Zawinski]

Of course you can change the mime type -- Matti's explanation for why this is
"impossible" to fix doesn't make any sense at all.  To do this, you just insert
some code in the place where you first examine the Content-Type header, to also
examine the extension on the URL (if the magic DWIM preference is turned on.)

This all happens *before* mozilla has decided to render it.  This happens after
you've gotten the HTTP headers but before you've gotten the body, at exactly the
time you're making the render-versus-helper-app decision.

As I said in bug 207174 (preserved here for posterity):

> I propose an option that would enable the following behavior when
> loading a URL:
>
>    - get the extension from the URL;
>    - if there is a mime.types association for that extension,
>      and that extension is not text/* or application/octet-stream:
>    - then ignore the server's Content-Type in favor of the mime.types type.
>
> Or, maybe only do this if the server also sent a text/* or octet-stream type.
>
> (Possibly also relevant to bug 57342)


Please do this.  MSIE is not going to just go away, so the best thing Mozilla
can do is cope with the web as it is.  And the web is full of "WORKSFORME-in-IE"
sites.  This would be a simple change that would make things behave much more
intuitively.

Try to put yourself in the position of a novice user who has clicked on a link
to an MP3 file, and can *see in the URL bar* that the file ends in .mp3, and
yet, their screen is filling up with junk.

Try to imagine a web site where the URL ends in ".mp3", and yet, the site's
creator actually *intended* it to be displayed as text.  How frequent do you
think that will be?  Is that wacky case worth spewing junk at users in the far
more common other case?  I certainly don't think so.

Comment 6

[Biju]

>> 
>> Mozilla will not ignore the mime-type and we can't change 
>> it after we started to download it -> wontifx
>>

Then give an option before downloading....

I tried "right click/save Link Target as" but it is corrupting....

Forum http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=88545#88545

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

Yes, filetypes should really be handled by the server - but the reality is that
many sites do not have correct MIME-types.  Users should not be penalized for it.

It's a pain when dealing with audio or video (in particular Windows Media Video)
because the files are so big - and when Mozilla/Firebird tries to handle them,
it looks as if the browser crashed.

Please consider fixing this - we can sit here and claim its the webmasters'
fault, or we can do something about our browser so the majority of users will be
able to access such files properly.

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

Yes, filetypes should really be handled by the server - but the reality is that
many sites do not have correct MIME-types.  Users should not be penalized for it.

It's a pain when dealing with audio or video (in particular Windows Media Video)
because the files are so big - and when Mozilla/Firebird tries to handle them,
it looks as if the browser crashed.

Please consider fixing this - we can sit here and claim its the webmasters'
fault, or we can do something about our browser so the majority of users will be
able to access such files properly.

Comment 9

[Biju]

Attachment: Mime Selection as menu item

I am looking for some thing like ths

Comment 10

[Biju]

Attachment: This also is useful

Comment 11

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

this is bug 220807 or bug 11521 I suppose... marking duplicate of the former,
reopen if you disagree

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 220807 ***

Comment 12

[Biju]

not  bug 220807, but duplicate of  bug 11521