270736 - .exe file does not open. Firefox doesn't know this .exe file does not need anything else to work

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[juan rodriguez]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

I bookmark prime95.exe file on my computer. When I click to start it, it goes to
a Firefox popup that says "You have chosen to open
Prime95.exe
which is a: aplication
from: C:\Program files\Prime95
-What should Firefox do with this file?
* open with (shaded off and inactive)
* save to disk
+ Do this automatically for files like this from now on (shaded off and inactive)

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click Bookmarks on taskbar
2. Go down to Prime95 folder and open it
3. Try to open prime95.exe

Actual Results:  
When I click to start it, it goes to a Firefox popup that says "You have chosen
to open
Prime95.exe
which is a: aplication
from: C:\Program files\Prime95
-What should Firefox do with this file?
* open with (shaded off and inactive)
* save to disk
+ Do this automatically for files like this from now on (shaded off and inactive)

Expected Results:  
Just run.

It works with IE but does not even show with k-meleon.

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

It's for security reasons not to automatically run an exe.

Comment 2

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

We're not going to allow auto-execute for downloaded files.  Clicking on a
bookmark downloads the file, regardless of where it actually is, so we can't fix
this.

Launching arbitrary apps isn't something bookmarks are intended for.  IE's
integration with Windows means that it can have a shortcut to anything, which
strikes me as a big hole.  All you need to do is get something into the
bookmarks with a simple name (i.e. CNN.com) and bang, you've deleted everything
on your harddrive).  It just doesn't seem to be a good idea, period.

Comment 3

[Kevin Brosnan]

*** Bug 294583 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Kevin Brosnan]

*** Bug 304774 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Ali Ebrahim]

Verifying

Comment 7

[Sid Reynolds]

For some reason it seems to be working now.... it didn't work last night, and it didn't work this morning... but after I report the bug, it mysteriously works now. Very frustrating - I hope it doesn't repeat in future.

Comment 9

[lallafa]

Not sure if this is the right place (seems to fit in with the duplicate bugs but I have no idea what the original poster of this one is actually talking about). My issue is with the seemingly discontinued support for openDownload.

This is ridiculous. I've been using firefox with opendownload for YEARS now (since I was in my early teens and first took the time to read through every available extension at the time), and I like to think I'm not stupid enough to run a program if I don't recognize it. I don't know why you would disable something that is already completely user-controlled/user-choice (seeing as it's only available through an extension). This browser used to be optimal for me because I could customize it for efficiency, but it seems like every "update" means more vital extensions losing functionality (I'm still not really sure how I'm supposed to get over the loss of tabHistory) instead of incorporating it into the basic browser. If I wanted a browser nanny limiting my every action I would be using chrome.

Comment 11

[Cristian Vasile Mocanu]

Guys, please reconsider. Installing applications just got a lot worse in FireFox.

The REAL WORLD use-case is this: I want to be able to directly run an executable file because I don't store application setups anymore. I always want to install the latest version from the internet.

The fact that I have to first save it in the TEMP directory, then run it, and then delete it, is just too much manual work that the computer could do for me.

At the very least make it an option for "about:config" - disabled by default if you want.

With FireFox 4 there is no extension anymore that can give us this behaviour (both RunDownload and OpenDownload are dead).

I tried hacking around in nsHelperAppDlg.js, but couldn't get this to work.

If a FF dev can point to me how to get it working (or even better, give us a patch), I would be willing to manually modify that until an official solution arrives.

P.S. Whoever came with this idea of removing useful functionality _without providing at least an about:config option_, should feel terribly ashamed.

Comment 12

[Konomi]

Voicing my opinion as a firefox user, it is stupid this feature is not in firefox, the old count down timer was more than sufficiant, and what is wrong with making an option so we can have the old beahviour back?