having a link in firefox open a local exe
 

I am trying to set up a homepage for myself that has links to every site, irc, forum, etc... and also local programs.. I am putting images on there and when clicked i want them to open the local program... can this be done with javascript or something?

ive tried linking to file://///c:/file.exe but no luck im sure there is a way to do it though, so I ask you all to share your knowledge :)


(ps the site is hosted online, and i want it to open local files)

I'm pretty sure that is considered a security risk, and Firefox won't allow it. They removed a SHELL:// exploit recently that was for a similar thing.

Recently Firefox/Mozilla/(Thuderbird?) had a problem where clicking on a certain type of link could execute a local file. They quickly (same-day) developed a fix for it.. so I believe what you want to do is exactly the thing that was considered a 'security hole' hehe.

It was called the 'shell: protocol' security hole (or similar). More info is available here:

Bug 250180 - Shell: protocol allows access to local files and can lead to a DOS

What Mozilla users should know about the shell: protocol security issue

Someone may be able to clear this up better than I have. I'm not sure if you can still run files (or the proper syntax to test it) after the fix has been applied.

And redlemon beat me to it ;)

hmmm :( this isnt cool

But your answer was more complete! :D

theres gotta be some way of accomplishing it?

Probably not. It is a web browser, not an application launcher. But you'll appreciate it when you click on a bad link and Firefox doesn't format your hard drive or install spyware.

I know its possible... purge uses browser bob and javascript to launch the game

... so the link works when the file is hosted localy... thats fine ill keep it local.. however the link just goes to download it, there is some exec command or something but I dont know how to make it work...

*points up there* Firefox is a webbrowser, not a application launcher. That's what start bars, tool bars, desktops, and such are for really.

<I>If</I> there is some javascript to launch <I>local</I> apps... well, there's google. ;) I had a quick look but haven't found anything worthwhile. Java generally is very security geared, so I doubt there is something, but never know. :P

About 'run automatically', it looks to me firefox may not have that either, it doesn't appear to have any sort of 'zone' setup either, which probably makes it a 'good thing' that you can't click on an exe file and run them straight away. You might be able to set up your MIME types to get around that however. (agian, not -really- a good idea).

As bad of a language it is, maybe you should have a look at coding something up in VB (6/.NET). It should be reasonably simple to get both functionality out of a small VB 'launcher' app (that is, launch webpages & run local applications), and you have possibly more control over how you present it, depending on how you look at it.

David M

What about having Firefox launce a shortcut to the exe? I would hope that doesn't work too (for security reasons), but hey- you never know.

bah.. lmao... im so stupid...

:D and you said it couldnt be done...

simply make a new file called new.ms3d, put it on the server and have the link to that, then the browser will open it with the assosiated program (or download it if you choose) now I just need to figure out why do this for files like this automaticly is greyed out