Re: HTTP MIME types question

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Voronkov Konstantin wrote:

> I have a question about HTTP MIME types. Our company created
> application which uses HTTP protocol for communications. What is the
> best MIME type to use?

Depends on the kind of content your application is transmitting as
HTTP payload. Usually, one of the registered MIME types fits well
enough. If not, you can use (and register) your own type. Here is what
Section 3.7 of RFC 2616 has to say:

   Media-type values are registered with the Internet Assigned Number
   Authority (IANA [19]). The media type registration process is
   outlined in RFC 1590 [17]. Use of non-registered media types is
   discouraged.

You may want to read Section 14.17 of the same RFC as well.

> Can any proxy change content (e.g. for security reasons) if I use no
> HTTP MIME type?

Some proxies might. Proxies are known to guess content type by URL
extensions and other methods.

> Some of proxy servers can try to cut banners, remove sounds and so
> on. How can I avoid this?

There may be several ways, depending on your environment.  What are
you sending (HTML, text, opaque bytes)? Who is the client (browser,
custom plugin, applet)? Do you control your clients? In general, using
the no-transform cache-control directive may be a good start (see
section 14.9.5 No-Transform Directive).

HTH,

Alex.

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Received on Thursday, 13 March 2003 11:08:05 UTC