html - Cross-browser link to file on local system

Question

I would like to make a link from a web page to a file on a local filesystem and make it work in all browsers (or at least in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome).

For example, the following works in Internet Explorer:

<a href="\myserverdocinfo.pdf">Info here</a>

but not in Firefox and Chrome.

Is there a way to make a link that works in all browsers?

Or a way to use javascript to detect which browser it is and then display the appropriate link based on the filename?

Answer 1

Links to local files on pages that were retrieved via HTTP(S) are deliberately disabled in Mozilla/Firefox, because they can be a security risk, and have been used in attacks in the past.

You can override this behaviour, however. For details, see this article in MozillaZine.