Re: squid (1.2) mangles ftp://foo/textfile into a download form

George Michaelson wrote:

> I still maintain that in deploying a service which masquerades
> on the network in place of direct access, the principle of least
> suprise should apply, and the behaviour for an unknown object
> should mimic that of the browser: applying the mime encoding
> pre-determines how to process the object.

Agreed, but unfortunately we have no choice but to determine the mime
type. HTTP requires the mime type to be set.
 
> I do accept that for a definate class of objects (8-bit) promoting to
> text/plain is equally broken.

Default: application/octet-stream
* Confusing for some users
* Always possible to read the file after retreival.

Default: text/plain
* Easier to use
* Some users are unable to retreive certain binary files, depending on
browser and platform used.

I see no choice but to have the default configuration set to
application/octet-stream. In both cases the mime mappings needs
to be updated when new file types are encountered, but with the default
of application/octet-stream the users will at least be able to download
unknown files.

---
Henrik Nordström
Sparetime Squid Hacker