[RESOLVED] New mime types read as EXE

ixalmida

The only mime-type check I am doing is the following:

if($_FILES["file"]["type"] == "application/octet-stream")

But apparently, this statement comes up TRUE for PPTX, DOCX, (etc) mime types for Office 2008 documents. A Google search came up with some "hacks" to fix it, but they sound "iffy".

Does anyone know how best to deal with this?

NogDog

The type for an uploaded file is dependent upon what the client sends, so depending on it to be accurate is "iffy" in any case, especially if it is a security issue.

ixalmida

So...I take it that the browser is determining the mime type. The users of my application are all internal to my company, so should I force them to change browsers?

I think most people are currently on IE6, so I could see how that would be an issue. But there is no set standard so users may be using anything. Would pushing people to IE7 make a difference?

NogDog

ixalmida;10890813 wrote:
So...I take it that the browser is determining the mime type. The users of my application are all internal to my company, so should I force them to change browsers?

I think most people are currently on IE6, so I could see how that would be an issue. But there is no set standard so users may be using anything. Would pushing people to IE7 make a difference?

It would certainly be more consistent.

Ultimately, though, you might want to look into using something like the fileinfo PECL extension.

ixalmida

Looks like IE 8 is about to be out and I've been testing it. It does seem to display my pages more like Firefox does. It also has a compatability mode so it can fall back to IE7 mode. I think this will fix the mime type problem as well as allow me to make my pages more consistent.

On a side note, some plugins to IE 8 may stop working without an update (ie- the Google toolbar causes critical errors and crashes the browser). I'm guessing most plugins will have updates to compensate.