Firefox is quite helpless handling files sent with wrong mimetype (eg. displaying binary files as text when sent with text/plain header OR forcing you to download text files when sent with some binary header) > http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_files_using_plugins#Misconfigured_web_server There is a proposal of extension that will allow you to overwrite that > http://code.google.com/p/fx-show-as-text/ BUT: you can edit your > C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\nsHelperAppDlg.js eg. change value of > this.mDialog.document.getElementById("normalBox").collapsed = true; to > false what will cause that every download popup dialog will show good old > 'What should Firefox do with this file' fieldset from now on (you must restart FF ...) (It is possible to rewrite this file further and try to quess the type of the file from its suffix and then accordinly chenge behaviour of dialogs ...) keywords: "open as text firefox extension mimetype download" HINT: If you want to see any file as text you can use the > view-source: pseudoprotocol.