Brennan’s Blog

Many, many times in the past year I have had people email me about not being able to download a zip file from this site using Internet Explorer. It seems that once it is downloaded the file is corrupt and they cannot open it. This is very disappointing because I create these zip files with the zip file support built into Windows Explorer in WinXP SP2, yet IE has a problem with them.

In one case one person with the problem cleared their cache and was able to download the file properly. That is an odd solution which indicates to me that IE has some real problems.

I found reasons why IE cannot download files properly and it is a long list, such as anti-virus software interfering with the download. The list includes links to several hotfixes for IE. Instead of wasting all of that time to make IE perform what should be the most basic function of a web browser, just go get Firefox. It has a feature where it downloads files without corrupting the file. It is really convenient.

Just look at all of these suggestions to fix IE download support. Roll back WinXP SP2, install this or that hotfix, or change settings for an anti-virus program. And as the poor guy spends all that time trying those suggestions nothing helped. Just using a different browser would have solved his problems right away.

I also upload screencasts to the server in WMV format. I emailed a link to one of these files to someone the other day and he clicked on the link in Outlook. It started IE to pull down this file and it failed. I copied the link directly from Outlook and pasted into the location bar in IE and that worked. I have not had such problems with Firefox.

To save yourself the trouble, just stop using Internet Explorer. Get Firefox and make it your default browser.