Question : Opening shared network folders in Firefox from a html page

We have got an intranet site and I want everyone to open the shared network folders if browsing in Firefox or any other browsers other than IE because this functionlity works very well in IE.
I specified <a href="file://///server/folder/"></a> to overcome this problem. But when I open the html file directly in Firefox the link to open the network folder works, but when I type http://intranet_site in Firefox and try to open the link it doesnt work.

My assumption is when the request goes through IIS the page is not served up properly in Firefox whereas if the html file is opened directly then it has no issues.

My question to experts is, is there any setting in IIS that I have to look at which will resolve this problem or is it something else I need to know about.

Thanks

Answer : Opening shared network folders in Firefox from a html page

This is a security feature of Firefox (and Chrome, Safari, Opera...)

to allow an HTML page to open a UNC path is a security risk. it is possible in IE because it is developed by the same company as Windows (and is probably used by other applications that leverate off of the hooks between IE and Windows)

You can modify the security settings in the Firefox about:config page.
This setting will only allow access to specific files. you can not link to a directory.
if you're interested in allowing access to files in firefox:
1. type "about:config" in the address bar
2. click "I'll be careful, I promise!" button
3. right click on the window and select "NEW" >> "STRING"
4. enter the following preference name / value pairs
>NAME: capability.policy.policynames
>VALUE: localfilelinks
5. REPEAT STEPS 3 and 4 for the foillowing pairs
>NAME: capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites
>VALUE: http://domain.com    (note: for the domain, you can list multiple domains - just separate each with a space)
>NAME: capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled
>VALUE: allAccess

6. Restart Firefox

Note: you can paste a UNC path into these browsers and some will display the contents but it does not work like IE where it opens an explorer window showing the contents of the folder.