Alternative to file:// links

[Nilus]

Hi,

We are trying to put some links to files on network shares on an internal website. Unfortunately file:// links do not work except in IE, and the majority of people here use Chrome.

Is there an alternative to download local files in shares via links without having to roll out extensions?

[Top Qat]

UNC paths maybe

http://en.wikipedia....%28computing%29

[Top Qat]

For UNC it's also useful to know this:

http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/coryrobinson/archive/2007/11/08/how-to-make-unc-paths-with-spaces-link-properly-in-emails.aspx

[+BudMan MVC]

Ok maybe I am not understanding what your doing.. But clearly firefox and chrome understand a file:// link

As you can see here accessing my z:\ which is a share off a file server on my work network

I also verified it with just a \\unc, ie \\hostname\sharename vs mapped drive letter and that works just fine as well.

How about you show us what your doing in IE, and what is not working in FF or Chrome.

[Nilus]

Yes this confused me into thinking it works as well

if you put file://server/share/file etc into your browser yourself, or click on it from a html page on your local machine, it works.

However, if you have a page on a external server (external as in, anything else on your network), then Chrome disables clicking on file:// links. This can be reproduced by having a simple IIS site set up with a file:// link on it. If you go to the page via its http://server/page.html address chrome disables clicking on the link.

It is really annoying, the only way around it I have found is to set up an IIS website which provides a html directory listing which we can then copy the links from and put on the intranet site. This has the added step that if the file is not on the local server the traffic goes from fileserver-webserver-client rather than just fileserver-client.

Unless i'm missing something really obvious this makes chrome useless for corporate intranet use :/

[+BudMan MVC]

that would be a security issue here is a addon that should allow it in chrome

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jllpkdkcdjndhggodimiphkghogcpida

Here is one for firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/locallink/

[Nilus]

that would be a security issue here is a addon that should allow it in chrome

https://chrome.googl...imiphkghogcpida

Here is one for firefox

https://addons.mozil...ddon/locallink/

Thanks. I did look at that, but unfortunately we can't roll out crome extensions due to security policy.

It is a shame, I was hoping that there would be an alternative to those type of links that i'd missed (my web coding skills are of the most basic level) rather than that type of link being outright blocked. I would have thought that by having a local intranet in trusted sites then file links to fileservers would be allowed, it seems quite odd that its not.

[+BudMan MVC]

Hmmm -- well upon google I found this

http://thinkinginsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/03/open-local-file-link-from-chrome.html

Which says that you should be able to drag the link to the address bar, but testing his link there with my chrome - doesn't work. But what does work with his test url he has to open your local host file is right click it and say copy link, and then paste that directly into address bar and it works.

I don't play around with chrome that often, and rarely use it at work - so I have not run into this, hope you find a solution. I would contact the developers about it. You would think there should be a way to allow for it. Like you said trusted sites, etc.