Force download from a browser link using FTP

bryson

Ok, so i know how to force downloading in a browser using:
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=x.avi");

But... what if the file isn't on the webserver, but on a remote FTP server.

So, I have a link like this:
<A HREF="ftp://user:pass@blah.net/video/x.avi">click here</A>

And of course if you click on it Windows Media Player launches and it tries to play.
How can I force the download?

thanks

madwormer2

The simple way is to just ask them not to, and to right click save as, or use a download manager.

I'm unsure how else you could go about it, maybe someone else knows of a way.

bryson

haha, people don't read man....
naw man, I need a way to do it with code

MarkR

You should not use FTP for file transfers. It's antiquated, peculiar and inflexible.

Just store the file on your HTTP server instead, and use the appropriate header modifications (i.e. in your web server not serving it via PHP) to try to force a download.

Mark

Eric_T

There is no fool proof way of forcing IE to do file downloads. If a user has told the browser to open a particular file type with an application, there is really no way around it. One thing you can try is, in the content type make up a file type to try and confuse the browser. The best method is giving them instructions to right click on the link and do a save as.

madwormer2

Zip the file up, then they'll have to download the whole thing before they can watch it.

Or even better, make it into a self-extracting exe, and that way IE will have to download it before it can open it, and most browsers won't let you open an exe directly from a webpage anyway.

You'd probably scare off most of your user base though.