title: How do I associate a custom MIME-type to my local application in the major browsers?
body: <p>I want to invent a new mime-type and associate it to a custom application in the browser to enable users to launch my app from a web page. The users of my secure web site are in a closed-environment, meaning this is not a general-purpose, mainstream application - I can configure their browser ahead of time. </p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.spoon.net" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Spoon.net</a> does something very similar to enable launching virtualized applications using their mini-kernel plugin.</p>
  
  <p>One of the answers to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6265717/how-to-start-up-a-desktop-application-in-client-side/6265845#6265845">this question</a> alluded to this method, without details for how to accomplish it.</p>
  
  <p>How do I achieve this in a cross-platform manner on Chrome and IE 8/9? Is there a way to do the mime-type association through browser extensions, either native or through <a href="http://www.crossrider.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">crossrider</a>? How does an app like Adobe Reader or Apple Quicktime achieve this? I want to avoid touching the registry if possible.</p>
  
  <p>What are the risks associated with this method? My site is an intranet web application secured with a certificate and trusted by my users. Any reason I should not go down this path?</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong>: Apparently this can be achieved in Firefox by manipulating the <a href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/MimeTypes.rdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mimeTypes.rdf file</a>.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong>: It looks like <a href="http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/jdic_assoc/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JDIC</a> is a Java-based mechanism that could be used for the same thing. Is there a similar non-Java construct? Maybe in Javascript?</p>