Can Google Chrome open local links?

Question

You can't link to file:/// from an HTML document that is not itself a file:/// for security reasons.

This question is dated, but I had the same problem just now, the solution I found was to map a virtual directory in IIS to the networked drive with the documents, so the url became a friendly "http://" address.

Setting virtual directories:

IIS:

http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.applicationhost/sites/site/application/virtualdirectory

Apache:

http://w3shaman.com/article/creating-virtual-directory-apache

Cheers!

From what I've seen of this the following is true for Firefox and Chrome;

1) If you have a HTML page open from a remote host then file:// links will not work i.e. Your address bar reads http://someserver.domain and the page contains a link such as <a href="file:///S:/sharedfile.txt">

2) If you have a HTML page open from your local host then file:// links will work i.e. your address bar reads file:///C:/mydir/index.html and the page contains a link such as <a href="file:///S:/sharedfile.txt">

For Internet Explorer point 1) does not hold true. A file on your local host can be accessed using the file:// link syntax from a webpage on a remote host. This is considered a security flaw in IE^{(By who? References?)} (and it's there in IE8 too) because a remote host can access files on your local computer without your knowledge .... admittedly they have to get lucky with the filename but there are plenty of commonly named files there with the potential to contain personal/private information.

LocalLinks now seems to be obsolete.

LocalExplorer seems to have taken it's place and provides similar functionality:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/local-explorer-file-manag/eokekhgpaakbkfkmjjcbffibkencdfkl/reviews?hl=en

It's basically a chrome plugin that replaces file:// links with localexplorer:// links, combined with an installable protocol handler that intercepts localexplorer:// links.

Best thing I can find available right now, I have no affiliation with the developer.

The LocalLinks extension from the most popular answer didn't work for me (given, I was trying to use file:// to open a directory in windows explorer, not a file), so I looked into another workaround. I found that this "Open in IE" extension is a good workaround: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-in-ie/iajffemldkkhodaedkcpnbpfabiglmdi

This isn't an ideal fix, as instead of clicking the link, users will have to right-click and choose Open in IE, but it at least makes the link functional.

One thing to note though, in IE10 (and IE9 after a certain update point) you will have to add the site to your Trusted Sites (Internet Options > Security > Trusted sites). If the site is not in trusted sites, the file:// link does not work in IE either.