HTML links to local network shares [duplicate]

Question

Why do these links not work? If I click on them in FF or Chrome, nothing happens - it doesn't even try to open them!

<a href="file://someshare/dir/subdir/file.txt">Linky</a>
<a href="file:////someshare/dir/subdir/file.txt"> Linky</a>
<a href="file://\\someshare\dir\subdir\file.txt">Linky</a>

Any ideas?

Answer 1

In general, this is disabled because it is a security risk. See also this question: Cross-browser link to file on local system, and the link provided by sleske to here.

Answer 2

This is an oldie, but goodie -- still comes up quite often.

There are extensions for both browsers (FireFox & Chrome) that can allow you to access local links:

Chrome - Locallink

Firefox - LocalLink