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Instead, the file will open and play in Firefox, with a control bar displayed to manage playback (see this article for details). The file will not be downloaded and the Downloads panel will not open. You will not be asked what to do with the file (unless the file is assigned "Content-Disposition: attachment" by the web server). Note: Firefox treats links to some types of media files, such as. If you select Always Open Similar Files in the Downloads panel right-click context menu for the file, ( see below) a new Content Type and Action entry will be added to the General panel Applications section of Firefox settings.
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When you tell Firefox to open or save a file and also check the option "Do this automatically for files like this from now on" in the "What should Firefox do with this file?" prompt, If Firefox does not have a set download action for a type of file, Firefox will save the file by default. (If you use an add-on and need help with it, you should visit the add-on site or contact the add-on developer for support.) You can contact the website in such cases, or you can try a Firefox add-on such as Content-Type Fixer to work around the problem.
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To learn more, see Properly configuring server MIME types and Common MIME types at MDN web docs. For example, Firefox may display the content as plain text instead of opening the file in an application. The the Media type, also called the MIME type or Content type, as configured by the web server, will determine what action Firefox will take.įirefox will not be able to properly handle a file if a misconfigured web server sends it with an incorrect content type. When you click on a link to download a file, you may see a dialog asking whether you want to save the file or open it with a specific application, if there is no download action already set for that file type.
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