prevent browser to play mp3 in new browser window - html

Question

is there a way to prevent a browser from opening an mp3 in a new browser window?
i have a normal link to mp3 file like
some.mp3
and of course you can download it with right click -> save as. but some users don't know that. so if they click on a link, a new window opens where they can listen to that mp3.
issue is, i want the users to download the files once instead of listen to them thousand times over my server ;)

Answer 1

Through html only you cannot force the link to open a file save dialog.
Instead you can achieve that through PHP and with some custom headers as seen here
A simple download.php file could look like:
<?php
$file = $_GET['file'];
$dir = "path/to/files/";
if(!file)
{
die('file not found');
}
else
{
$local_file = $dir . $file['filename'];
$file = fopen($local_file, "r");
header("Cache-Control: public");
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Description: File Transfer");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
// set download rate
$download_rate = 100.0;
// fetch the file
fread($file, round($download_rate * 1024));
// close the file stream
fclose($file);
}
?>
Where you can specify the directory where all your files as saved, as well as a download rate if needed to limit the speed at which the file can be downloaded.
Update
Forgot to mention that you will then change your links to:
some.mp3
where test.mp3 will be changed to your particular download

Answer 2

quick and dirty: maybe you .zip it...than the browser automatically downloads the file

Answer 3

thanks for your script. it didn t worked out for me, because the $local_file variable wasn't build right.. don t ask, not really a php pro. still your post put me in the right direction. here s my solution
<?php
$downloadfile = "directory/".$_GET['file'];
$filename = $_GET['file'];
$filesize = filesize($downloadfile);
header("Content-Type: audio/mpeg3");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename");
header("Content-Length: $filesize");
readfile($downloadfile);
exit;
?>
oh, and for other php-dummies: NO WHITESPACE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SCRIPT!!!