IE won't load directly-linked PNGs

Question

I remember having this issue in the past with previous versions as well but recently it started here again. Whenever I click a link that links directly to a PNG image I get a download dialog; the browser won't display it on its own. Inline PNGs are fine, though.

ETA: It apparently only happens from PNG images linked from RSS feeds. Maybe it has always been so, I can't really say.

ETA2: IE 8 it is, as should be common sense but apparently it needs to be stated explicitly sigh.

Any ideas what causes this? It did work in the past.

_{Preemptive warning: I'm not looking for advice to change my browser; I'm looking for a solution to a specific problem with one piece of software. Just ignore the fact that it may have religious importance.}

Answer 1

Preemptive warning: I'm not looking for advice to change my browser; I'm looking for a solu-

Chrome.

It apparently only happens from PNG images linked from RSS feeds. Maybe it has always been so, I can't really say.

As far as some things to get you started troubleshooting this, you may want to look at MIME Sniffing in Internet Explorer. It will try and infer the type of resource being requested, rather than look at the MIME type.

There is also a miscellaneous option under "Security Zones" called Open files based on content, not file extension, which invokes the above behaviour.

There are some extended controls for it in the registry, down the bottom of this article.