Cross-browser link to file on local system

Question

I would like to make a link from a web page to a file on a local filesystem and make it work in all browsers (or at least in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome).

Answer 1

Links to local files on pages that were retrieved via HTTP(S) are deliberately disabled in Mozilla/Firefox, because they can be a security risk, and have been used in attacks in the past.

You can override this behaviour, however. For details, see this article in MozillaZine.