How to change url for some sites automatically in Firefox 3 - configuration

I want some particular urls like "springer.com" to automatically convert to "springer.com.proxy1.mycollege.edu". The second url takes me to springer site through my college library gateway; I am able to access some parts that would otherwise be restricted.
Is there some way to convert the url as above automatically in firefox 3?

Could use your hosts file to trick firefox into looking for springer.com in the right place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file

You can use Greasemonkey for such task.

One way to solve your problem is to run a web proxy like Squid, configure authentication against your campus LDAP directory, and use a Proxy auto-config file to make the browser go through your proxy.

Related

How to open html link to local file in its default program, NOT browser?

Basically, I'm creating a webpage filled with images of movie posters that link to video files, as a means of making a more visually-appealing form of my local video library.
I'm using
<a href="C:\blah\movie.mkv"><img src="poster.jpg">
It works exactly how I want, HOWEVER, it opens the file in the browser rather than opening it in its default program, as I would like. I would like each link to open the file in the program titled "VLC Media Player", as specified in Windows for each of their filetypes.
Let me know how I can do this (in the simplest form--I'm not too smart :P)
Thanks!
If you are creating web pages on your local system for you own use then you may want to consider looking in to a WAMP server setup. This uses php and should allow you to call VLC using the exec command. Would take some learning however.
There is very little you can do to control how a client will handle a resource.
You can use the Content-Disposition HTTP response header to state that the resource is an attachment (and thus recommend that it be downloaded instead of opened).
Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="movie.mkv"
You can't, however, stop browser native support or a plug-in from handling something instead of having it open in a separate application (let alone cause it to be opened in a specific application).
If the browser is configured to open video files internally, then nothing the author of a website can do will make it switch to using a application instead.

Is it possible to change the url of a static .html without changing the name of the file?

I would like to know if there is a way to change the url of a .html file without changing the name of the file. Eg. if I have a website with a page called 1.html, is there a way to make it appear as mypagename.html to visitors and crawlers?
This is called URL-rewriting. URL-rewriting implementation differs between different platforms. So, you have to state your server application (e.g. Apache, IIS etc.).
If you're running on *nix, it may be easiest to just use a link (soft may require a configuration change, hard will require you to remember that both names refer to the same file).
Note on enabling soft links: https://serverfault.com/questions/244592/followsymlinks-on-apache-why-is-it-a-security-risk
You could use the HTML5 History API to push a new, possibly fake, address. I wouldn't suggest it tough.
https://github.com/browserstate/History.js/
Yes there is, but your host must provide URL rewriting. If you're on a Apache server look for .htaccess capabilities and mod_rewrite's RewriteRule directive

Workaround for href="file://///..." in Firefox

On an intranet site, let's say I want to link to a file on a share using UNC, at:
\\servername\foldername\filename.rtf
It seems the correct way to do this is with markup like this:
filename.rtf
That's five slashes - two for the protocol, one to indicate the root of the file system, then two more to indicate the start of the server name.
This works fine in IE7, but in Firefox 3.6 it will only work if the html is from a local file. I can't get it to work when the file comes from a web server. The link is "dead" - clicking on it does nothing.
Is there a workaround for this in Firefox? Those two browsers should be all I need to worry about for now.
Since this is obviously a feature of Firefox, not a bug, can someone explain what the benefit is to preventing this type of link?
This question has been asked at least twice before, but I was unable to find those posts before posting my own (sorry):
Open a direct file on the hard drive from firefox (file:///)
Firefox Links to local or network pages do not work
Here is a summary of answers from all three posts:
Use WebDAV — this is the best solution for me, although much more involved than I had anticipated.
Use http:// instead of file:///// — this will serve up a copy of the document that the user cannot edit and save.
Edit user.js on the client as described here — this worked for me in Firefox 3.6.15, but without access to client machines, it's not a solution.
In Firefox, use about:config, change the Security.fileuri.strict_origin_policy setting to false — this doesn't work for me in 3.6.15. Other users on [SO] have also reported that it doesn't work.
Use the locallinks Firefox extension — this sets the Security.fileuri.strict_origin_policy to true for you, and appears to have no other effect.
Read the file server-side and send it as the response — this presents the same problem as simply configuring your web server to use http://.
Browsers like Firefox refuse to open the file:// link when the parent HTML page itself is served using a different protocol like http://.
Your best bet is to configure your webserver to provide the network mapped file as a web resource so that it can be accessed by http:// from the same server instead of by file://.
Since it's unclear which webserver you're using, I can't go in detail as to how to achieve this.
In Firefox to Open File:\\\\\yourFileServer\docs\doc.txt for example you need to turn on some options in Firefox configuration:
user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "localfilelinks");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "http://yourServer1.companyname.com http://yourServer2.companyname.com");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess");
As it turns out, I was unaware that Firefox had this limitation/feature. I can sympathize with the feature, as it prevents a user from unwittingly accessing the local file system. Fortunately, there are useful alternatives that can provide a similar user experience while sticking to the HTTP protocol.
One alternative to accessing content via UNC paths is to publish your content using the WebDAV protocol. Some content managements systems, such as MS SharePoint, use WebDAV to provide access to documents and pages. As far as the end-user experience is concerned, it looks and feels just like accessing network files with a UNC path; however, all file interactions are performed over HTTP.
It might require a modest change in your file access philosophy, so I suggest you read about the WebDAV protocol, configuration, and permission management as it relates to your specific server technology.
Here are a few links that may be helpful if you are interested in learning more about configuring and using WebDAV on a few leading HTTP servers:
Apache Module mod_dav
IIS 7.0 WebDAV Extension
Configuring WebDAV Server in IIS 7, 6, 5
Add your own policy, open configuration "about:config" in the location bar and add three new entries:
capability.policy.policynames MyPolicy
capability.policy.MyPolicy.sites http://localhost
capability.policy.MyPolicy.checkloaduri.enabled allAccess
Replace http://localhost with your website.
Works with Firefox 70.0.
I don't know if this will work, but give it a shot! Old article, but potentially still useful.
http://www.techlifeweb.com/firefox/2006/07/how-to-open-file-links-in-firefox-15.html

How do I "install" specific web files on a proxy server?

This is for a in house system, that is required to be set-up this way.
I need specific web files, for example, all images to be manually pre-installed on a proxy server and never downloaded from the web server.
When the browser request the page, the only thing sent from the web server to the proxy should be the plain html page.
I would then like the images the html page uses, to be grabbed from the the proxy every time, for the complete render to the browser.
Is there a name for this set up? I have seen about caching but I do not even want the images downladed once. In addition, how would the html page know to use the images from the proxy?
How would I set up such a thing? I do not have a proxy server set-up yet so I do not know what platform I will be using, but suggestions are appreciated.
Thank You.
Well, I think that you could, for example, use Privoxy and tell it to redirect some queries for images to a local server or even let it replace the img src=" attribute inline using regexes.

Can an AIR app be programmed to handle a URL protocol?

I'm writing what is essentially a browser in Adobe AIR (ActionScript, not AJAX). A great bit of functionality to implement would be protocol handling. iTunes, for instance, handles itms protocols; when your friend sends you a link beginning with "itms://", it's going to launch iTunes as long as it's installed. Is there a way to write an AIR app (requiring AIR 2 would be fine) that can be the "handler" for a protocol in this way?
There is no way, programatically speaking, to specifically handle a particular protocol. However, there is InvokeEvent. InvokeEvent will be fired when the application is "invoked", either when it's explictly launched or if an associated file or URL is activated.
The process of associating your app with a particular file type or protocol scheme is separate and application-dependant. In iOS, for example, you would need to specify the protocol in Info.plist under CFBundleURLTypes/CFBundleURLSchemes.
Yes. You can use the URLLoader class to download data in binary form (URLLoader.BINARY) and then parse this as appropriate. See this CS3 documentation on working with external data.
http://www.patrick-heinzelmann.de/labs/lastfm/
I'm not sure exactly how it works and I don't see a way to download the app, so I can't even test it, but maybe it will help...
Check out this page. I am trying to find out the same thing, but I haven't found any solution to do it with just Air yet. Seems like you might need a custom installer to setup the correct registry entries, and a proxy application to "wash" the input to a correct format that then can start your application with the correct command line parameters. Hope this can be of any assistance.