View Content of ZIP Files Before Downloading

If you ever wanted to view the contents of a compressed file before downloading it, there’s now a simple way to do it.

This may come in handy if you suspect the file of not having what it claims (a bogus, or suspicious file). Using Google, we can now view the compressed file without installing any additional plugins or software.

Simply add the following before the URL to view the content.

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=

In this example, we’ve used Google Transcoder to view the contents of a theme file.

The URL should look like this:

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.woothemes.com%2Ffree-downloads%2Fsnapshot.zip

A quick way to view the contents may be to bookmark the following link in the Bookmarks Toolbar, under a convenient name such as “View ZIP”. Give the address (URL) of the bookmark as:

javascript:location.href='http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u='+document.location.href;

Open the download link in a new tab. Cancel the download. Click the bookmark to view the contents. You can then download it by clicking on the ‘View in HTML’ link at the bottom of the page.