Since configuring your browser to download and handle files appropriately depends on what browser you're using, here are a few general concepts that should help in your browser configuration.

NOTE: If your web browser has difficulty downloading FreeZone files, you may have better luck accessing ftp://ftp.scifi.com instead, either with an FTP client or your web browser.

• File Extensions and MIME Types -- Some Background
• Configuring Your Browser
• We suggest...
• Getting Helper Applications
• Information about specific browsers
• If you're still having problems
• One file downloaded 99% of the way and then it crashed. What gives?
• Some things to try if your helper application is having problems

File Extensions and MIME Types -- Some Background

Each kind of file is described in a couple of ways: by its extension (the ".foo" at the end of the file name) and by its "MIME type".

You're probably already familiar with the concept of the file extension. DOS and Windows have been using these forever, Unix often does. Instead of extensions, the Macintosh and Windows 95 create unique-looking icons to tell them what kind of file something is, but the concept is pretty much the same.
Some common file extensions are ".gif", ".jpg", ".au", ".wav", ".mov", and ".html".

MIME type develops from the same concept: that when you're transfering a file, both sender and receiver have to agree on what kind of file it is. MIME type gets sent down as header information every time any information gets sent from the web server to your browser (including pages of HTML and inline images).
Some common MIME types are "text/html", "image/gif", "audio/basic", "image/jpeg", and "video/quicktime".

Configuring Your Browser

So what do file extensions and MIME types have to do with configuring your browser to download FreeZone files? You need to tell your browser what to do when it starts to receive a file of a specific type.

Usually this is handled in a menu choice called "Preferences...", but again, this depends on your particular browser.

What you'll need to do is find (or add) the file extension/MIME type pair that describes the kind of file you're trying to configure your browser to handle. Then you'll need to tell your browser what to do with that item. Typical choices are "Use Browser as Viewer" (for example, a GIF could be shown in a web-browser window), "Save" (the file will be downloaded to your disk so that you can save it or do things with it other than view/play/listen to it), or "Launch Application" (as soon as the file is downladed, some other application will be launched to deal with it, then generally the file will be deleted from your hard drive).

If you select "Launch Application" (this is usually the default for all but the common image formats), you will then have to choose the application on your computer that you want to handle that kind of file.

We suggest...

...for big files (such as the video clips) and files that you're having difficulty getting to play properly in your helper application, that you use the "Save" or "Save to Disk" option. If you successfully retrieved a 1MB file that your video player didn't know what to do with, that file could get deleted before you'd have a chance to try to re-configure your helper application. If you saved it to disk, it would still be there for you to try opening in your helper application as you re-configure it.

Getting Helper Applications

So what if you don't have a helper application that can handle a particular kind of file? You need to find one. One good place to look is Netscape's Helper Applications page.

Information about specific browsers

Yahoo has a good list of browsers that provide technical information via the Web.

If you're still having problems

Try reading the documentation (on-line or print) that came with your browser. It might have special methods for changing the configuration of your particular browser. If you can't find anything in the documentation that helps, let us know what you're trying and what's not working. Be sure to tell us what browser and helper application you're working with.

One file downloaded 99% of the way and then it crashed. What gives?

Typically, browsers only update the number of bytes/percentage downloaded after that amount has been downloaded. So it will only show 100% downloaded after it really has downloaded and dealt with the entire file.

If your computer has problems when the file reaches the end of the download, it's probably because something is wrong in the way your browser is trying to post-process the download. It could be a misconfiguration of either browser or helper application, it could be a memory problem, or something else; there's no good way to tell without downloading the file again. This is why we suggest that you download large files to disk, especially if you are using a new helper application: if something does go wrong, the file will still be there to test with.

Some things to try if your helper application is having problems:

• Quit all other open applications and just run the helper application. If this works, there might be a memory problem or a conflict between your browser and that particular helper application
• Try another application. If this works, the helper application might have been buggy or not work with your version of the system software.
• Read the documentation that came with the helper app. Does it understand the kind of file you're sending to it? What hardware/software requirements does it have?