Using a Web Browser to download files from a web site

 Frequently, you will come across downloadable files that are linked to Web pages. For example, many Shareware sites use the Web browser as the primary interface for finding and downloading programs. Although you can download any type of file that a clickable link is connected to, most downloadable files you come across on the Internet will be in one of two forms: .ZIP or .EXE. ZIP files are compressed and require a utility like WinZip or PKZip to uncompress them before use. You can configure your browser to use helper programs to automatically uncompress these files, or just save them to your computer and you can manually uncompress them yourself.

The other types of files are EXE files which are know as self-extracting archives. For these types of files, you do not need a separate utility to uncompress them, they will uncompress automatically and will generally walk you through the installation process.

To download a file with your web browser, click on the link for the file to download, and your browser will attempt to identify what kind of file it is. Most browsers are not configured to properly handle .ZIP files, so it will ask you what to do with it. You will get a screen that looks something like this:

If you do a lot of file downloads, you can configure your browser to handle the file type with out asking you the above all the time. To save yourself a little time and avoid the above Unknown File Type messages, you can configure Netscape so that it will automatically open the Save As... box whenever you attempt to download a ZIP file.

From the Options... menu, select General Preferences.... Click on the Helpers tab. Scroll down and locate the item labeled application/x-zip-compressed. Where it says Action, click the Save to Disk button, then click OK.

Next time you download a file, Netscape will ask you where you want to save the file.

Using a Web Browser to download files from an FTP site

You can access public FTP sites directly from your Web browser. Enter the address of the FTP site into the Location / Go To box. Your browser will show you a graphical representation of the directory structure such as you might see in a Windows' File Manager or Explorer. To open a folder and go down into a subdirectory (folder), double click a folder on it. Click the Up to higher level directory link to climb back up a level in the directory. An FTP site viewed from your browser should look something like this:

Once you have found the file you want, just click on it. Your browser will ask you where you want to save the file on your computer.