The parameters 'filename' and 'filename*' differ only in that 'filename*' uses the encoding defined in RFC 5987. When both 'filename' and 'filename*' are present in a single header field value, 'filename*' is preferred over 'filename' when both are present and understood. To be on the safe side and ensure consistent behavior in all browsers, it's usually better to use both: Content-Type: application/octet-stream Content-Disposition. These OCTET-STREAM files may be opened by renaming the extension of the attached file to a specific file extension, and then by using an application with support for opening such files. For example, an.octet-stream file may be renamed to a.txt file (if it is indeed a.txt file), and Notepad may then be used to open the file.

• How To Open Application Octet Stream

How To Open Application Octet Stream

11 years ago User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/ Iceweasel/3.0.1 (Debian-3.0.1-1) Build Identifier: Some mail applications out there (especially web mailers) send PDF attachments with content-type application/octet-stream instead of application/pdf. When you open such a mail, Thunderbird only looks at the MIME header and does not open acroread when it encounters application/octet-stream. As PDF is an often used format and there are somany broken mailers I'd propose to use the attached patch (or any adaption of it) that let Thunderbird check whether the attachment with the type octet-stream has a name that ends with '.pdf' and in that case resets the content-type to application/pdf. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Send yourself a mail with PDF attachment and content-type 'application/octet-stream' 2.Open the mail in the viewer window 3.Click on attachment Actual Results: A dialog opens where the found attachment is recognized as 'binary data' and you get asked what to do with it. Expected Results: The attachment should be recognized as PDF (from the file name) and the user be asked whether to open it with acroread (or what ever).