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Google Chrome Downloads Files Before User Confirmation

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:02:02 +0000

I have noticed a strange behavior in Google’s latest Chrome developer build. I’m not sure if the problem exists in other versions of the Chrome browser as well but it is likely that it does.

Whenever you download a file with the Google Chrome web browser you see a small confirmation dialog at the bottom of the screen if the file can potentially be harmful to the computer. Options presented in that small dialog are to save the file or to discard it.

Imagine my surprise that the file was already in the download directory of my computer even though I did not select one of the two options for that file.

Google Chrome apparently starts the download right away but renames the file until the user has made the decision whether to save the file or discard it.

The file is named unconfirmed xxxxx.download for the time being. It is however the complete file and it can be executed or unpacked right from there, all without the users confirmation.

A click on the discard button removes the file from the download directory again while the save button renames it to its original file name. Closing the web browser has the same effect as selecting the discard button.

This is obviously not a huge problem but it definitely makes the confirmation dialog less secure. It would be better if the web browser would start the download only after the user’s confirmation or to use a temporary directory to preload the file and move it to the download directory after it has finished and the user has accepted the download.

How To Save Files In Different Formats

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:48:14 +0000

Users who want to create a bat file usually start by creating a text document in Windows and change the file extension afterwards to bat. The same principle is used when creating other formats like html documents. The following tip is not limited to Windows Explorer or text documents. It works as well in web browsers like Internet Explorer or Firefox, email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook and practically any program that is offering to save files.

The save as file dialog is usually offering a few file formats a document can be saved in. This limitation can be overridden by putting the name and file extension in quotation marks.

It is therefor possible to save information in different data formats even if they are not supported by the software program. It is even possible to select data formats that are not compatible at all with the data. A text document could be saved as an excel document or zip file. This will obviously throw an error when trying to open the file unless the right viewer is selected.

Howto Save Files from mybloop.com

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 07:35:15 +0000

Mybloop.com is a file hosting website that offers unlimited storage and is currently in beta stage. Files like mp3 are played in your browser and there is no obvious way to save them to your hard drive. Ryan from Cybernetnews came up with a way to save their files, so, here it is:

perform a search, for e.g. mp3 at mybloop
right-click a result and copy the link
paste the link into your address bar

change ?id= to /view/
a save to box should appear and you can save the file to your hard disk.

You only have to make sure that no other player plays the mp3 files directly in your browser. For Firefox you select Tools >> Options >> Downloads >> View & Edit Actions. Change the Action from e.g. mp3 files to “save them on my computer”.