285355 - Ability to open downloaded self-extracting archive .EXE files using an archive program

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement)

Description

[Mark Whitis]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Firefox does not properly handle self-extracting archives.   Understandably, you
don't want to carelessly execute an .EXE file.   However, self extracting
archives can normally be opened with archive programs such as FileRoller,
WinZip, power archiver, etc.    So, for all .EXE files, a valid option should be
to open with an archive tool.   This is also much safer than current behavior
where the user saves the file, clicks on it and it actually executes rather than
opening an archive tool.

As to the decision not to invoke .EXE files at all from within Firefox, that is
a rather dubious choice.    It is actually safer if you do open the file from
within firefox but only after reading the user the riot act than to download to
disk and let the user click on it without any warnings.  Actually, firefox will
invoke executable files if you click "open" in the download box but
unfortunately there is a box you can check which will suppress that warning in
the future and the warning is not harsh enough.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. click on url for self extracting archive

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.