(FWD) Load external content? message seems inappropriate

[downie -]

> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:17:13 -0400
> From: arma at mit.edu
> To: or-talk at freehaven.net
> Subject: (FWD) Load external content? message seems inappropriate
> 
> [Forwarding to the list since this address isn't subscribed.
> 
> My first question is: what is the content-type header provided by the
> webserver? Perhaps it was something that your browser recognized and
> thought it couldn't display by itself?
> 
> My second thought is: this might be a Torbutton bug, and might want
> to go into bugs.torproject.org.
> 
> --Roger]
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from owner-or-talk at freehaven.net -----
> 
> Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:11:52 -0500
> Subject: Load external content? message seems inappropriate
> From: Thomas Anderson <zelnaga at gmail.com>
> To: or-talk at seul.org
> 
> I was playing around with Tor Browser to see what it was like and
> tried to download a small 1mb file from a server of mine.  In the
> process, I got the following message:
> 
> ---------------------
> 
> An external application is needed to handle:
> 
> http://domain.tld/path/to/my/file.ext
> 
> NOTE: External applications are NOT Tor safe by default and can unmask you!
> 
> ---------------------
> 
> My question is...  why is an external package being loaded?  All I
> want to do is to download a file via HTTP to my hard drive.  I don't
> want to open it up in whatever application would be appropriate and
> even if I did, it's not as if that application would be the one that
> downloads the file - Tor Browser would still download it and just
> place it in the Windows temporary directory or where ever.
> 
> All in all, the message seems inappropriate.  Sure, if I was
> downloading, say, an *.exe, that *.exe might connect me to the
> internet, but even then, the message seems misleading, since, at that
> point, it's not that an external package is needed to handle the file
> so much as the file *is* an external package.
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 

This is a Torbutton message. Your operating system might automatically open a downloaded file with another application - which might in turn connect to the internet directly.
Since Torbutton has no way of knowing what your OS is set up to do, it's an appropriate warning.
GD
 		 	   		  
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