Is there a way for Mozilla or Firefox to read gziped (and preferably bzip2ed) files automatically, like Lynx can? Without ungziping them first obviously.

Thanks any help. Hope not too simple minded.

Out of interest, I just tried this:
I put file:///home/tredegar/linux into moxilla-firefox (v 1.07). There's a .tar.gz file listed. When I click on it I get a dialogue box: "You have chosen to open a gzip archive...". I chose "Open with Archive Manager (Default)".
I can then browse the archive, and read it. Oddly, for the README file in the archive, I have to specify kwrite as the thing to open it with.
So I do not understand your problem.

Ye of so little faith.

http://img282.imageshack.us/my.php?i...uestion7ey.jpg

This was when 'teat.tar' was clicked; teat.tar.gz produced no result.

Tried installing this: mozplugger - Plugin allowing external viewers to be launched inside Mozilla. But nothing happened.

Could I ask, is that what you were doing - using external viewers?

Nope, it's plain old mozilla-firefox 1.02 that came with Mandrake 2005LE. Nothing special has been added. Maybe yours is different?

It also works just fine in konqueror, where clicking on the .tar.gz file listed shows me that it contains a directory, I can drag this to my desktop, and choose "Copy", or click on it to open it and see its contents with konq. The README opens in kwrite, my preferred editor. Maybe you should try using konq? Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Thanks, I'll see if I can find a plugin or something.

What ubuntu does is have the 'archive manager' file-roller installed and this does the job.

Thanks for the help.

Glad you fixed it. Please post what you did to solve the problem, so others can benefit.

Installed the program 'file-roller'. When a tar or gzip, etc file is clicked to open it in Mozilla file roller opens with the tar file's, say, contents displayed in its window (probably have to set this up in the edit->preferences->helper applications dialog). Then simply click the desired file to open it in the application. (Unfortunately, when not in ubuntu, but in Debian Sarge it opens in Open Office instead. No doubt being dim but have'nt worked out how to fix this. However can get round it by right clicking on the file in file-roller and choosing open and then choosing mozilla.)

You did ask.

Thank you. I seem to have "file-roller" already installed, so that's why I didn't experience your problem.

Should have said that the helper aplication dialog asks for mime-types.

Mime type: application/gzip does gz files

application/tar does tar files

These also allow the use of .tar.gz files

application/compressed-tar allows the use of tgz files; but not tg files

Don't know what's going on, but above data gets things working reasonably.

Get impression application/x-tar, for example, may sometimes be needed, but don't know.