Firefox stuck opening rar files as videos [duplicate]

Question

When I try to open downloaded rar files, firefox attempts to handle it like a video by default. Choosing "other" option and heading to /usr/bin/file-roller isn't a permanent solution.

Answer 1

Try right clicking on the file in the File browser (Files or Nautilus), selecting 'Properties', then choose the 'Open with' Tab, find the program you want to to open the file with by default (I would guess you want to use 'Archive Manager', and then clicking on 'Set as default'. This should tell firefox (and any other application) which program to open the file with by default.

Answer 2

This is not a problem with firefox, it is a problem with the site you are downloading from. Your screenshot says: "which is: unknown", that means the webserver didn't send the correct mime type of the file, so firefox doesn't know what kind of file is this, so he just pops up a "random" application for it. (For me for unknown types always GIMP is suggested by firefox, for you it is Videos.)

Firefox doesn't decide the filetype based on the file's extension, it decides based on the mime type received from the server.

The server response from the site you are trying to download contains this:

Content-Type: application/octet-stream

So you see this:

A well behaving server would send this for a .rar:

Content-Type: application/x-rar

and the download window would look like this:

It says: which is: RAR archive.

To make this work properly you will have to contact the site's admin and ask him to set up their server to send proper mime type.

(Or maybe there is a firefox extension which can help in these cases to decide based on the extension, but I don't know any.)

UPDATE:

I did found a firefox extension to solve this (although I don't know how proper it is to use it, as this is a problem with the server, so it should be solved there): Force Content-Type Addon. Install it and add a new rule:

• URL: .rar$
• Old Content-Type: application/octet-stream
• New Content-Type: application/x-rar

After this every URL which ends in .rar and has a content-type of application/octet-stream will be changed to a content-type of application/x-rar, and you will get this:

Answer 3

Suggest choosing Save File, and only try to open after the download completes. Much more reliable, and the only way to handle multi-part RAR achives.