Forum Discussion
How the new Edge will handle file:// URI ?
file: links seems to be ignored in this version of Edge (like they are in Chrome). In the previous version of Edge however (and all IE versions), clicking on a file: link opens the original document.
This is why by the way we are still using IE / Edge at my office. A lot of important intranet applications allow users to upload document and modify them later. Using Chrome, the document has to be downloaded locally before editing, and then re-uploaded after editing. With IE/Edge, the original document opens in Word/Excel/Acrobat in edit mode. The user just have to press CTRL+S to save it.
I really hope Edge will keep this behavior.
Also a big user of file:// in our organization.
This is also the most important feature for our company's intranet ! In the past, we used IE as our main browser. Now, we use Firefox with an extension, but we still have some issue when the file link is inside an iframe. In the futur, we plan to use the new Edge browser if the file link are supported.
Many users see a security problem with file link, but this can easily mitigate with options like "open only non-applicative files" or "open only files from theses secures servers : ___", etc.
We've just started the first round of internal testing and this was one of the first issues pointed out.
We have a lot of file:// links to our central fileserver on our intranet website and not having them work at all is a big problem.
I've worked around the issue for now by adding our intranet server to the Enterprise Sitelist and having Edge render the website in IE Mode. That way the file:// links are working again. But this should definitely not "become a thing".
A whitelist of sorts would be nice. File:// links to any server/location listed on that whitelist would work, while all other file:// links would behave like usual - not do anything. That would be nice. It would allow us to whitelist our central fileserver while keeping "security high".
I've also opened a case about this, lets see if it leads somewhere.
- There is an extension for chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/enable-local-file-links/nikfmfgobenbhmocjaaboihbeocackld) which also works for edge.
But it's generally not a good practice to use local file links. Better way for your described usecase would be sharepoint or similair products.Kneecht"Use SharePoint or similar products," sounds to me like "spend many $100,000s of dollars on licensing, hardware and administration/support payroll per year in perpetuity" to maybe solve a problem that was previously not a problem, and cost $0.
File:\\\ links are plenty good practice when they're used responsibly in a secure, local intranet / web app environment. I need to link to Windows folder paths and files in non-SharePoint apps, period.
IE 11 or the EdgeHTML version of Edge should hopefully stick around for legacy support if Edge Chromium can't support file:\\\ links due to inherent Chromium limitations, but it would be fantastic if MS's future flagship browser supported them along with all the latest bells and whistles.
Just adding that we are also heavy users of the File:// links on our intranet.
Not having this feature would limit our switch from the old Edge browser.
Kneecht Sadly, you can download a file with this extension but you cannot open the original.
Thank for the answer.
Nothing new about this?
A GPO would be nice, where file links could be alowed for defindes file Servers.Like Firefox has it:
Firefox:
- Open Firefox.
- Enter about:support to the address bar.
- Click Open Directory for Profile Directory.
- Create or open user.js and add the following lines:
user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "localfilelinks");user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "file:///[[PUT SERVER NAME HERE]]";);user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess");- Restart Firefox
You can do this straight from the about:config dialogue. Open the following page: about:config of Firefox. I am not 100% sure if it works without a restart using this method.
Right click - New - String.
Name: "capability.policy.policynames" value: "localfilelinks"
Name: "capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled" value: "allAccess"
Name: "capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites" value: "http://site1 http://site2:8080 https://site3"
Note that the sites are a space-separated list. Include protocol. Include port numbers if they are not the default.And I support an application where linking to files on network drives is still used. Which is why it was convenient that IE supported it. And worthwhile to get Firefox to work as well.
- It's really unfortunate that Chrome or Edge does not offer an ADMX to implement this as Firefox has this added now and it works great for local files with no stupid registry entries or adding extra code to internal websites or using IE Mode.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1264779
Come on Chrome and Edge it's 2021 get it added 😄 I find the following works to open a folder from an Edge favorite
file:///C:/Users/tallen/OneDrive%20-%20Danaher/Documents/ePeak
You can simply drag a folder from File Explorer to the Edge address bar to get this link.
Edge 92.0.902.67
The folder content is displayed as bare HTML links which download the file and provide an Open link. Yeah, not editing the original files. But there is also a well-formatted file path you can copy and paste into File Explorer, so it is still handy as a bookmark to find local folders.- Eric_Lawrence
Microsoft
It has always been possible for the user to navigate to a file:// folder using the omnibox/addressbar or a favorite. The topic at hand is the restriction that blocks navigation to a file:// URL from a http/https URL, as discussed in https://textslashplain.com/2019/10/09/navigating-to-file-urls/
- I have actually started incorporating the addin "ietabhelper" into my browser installations. This has proved to be very effective.
