[http] Do I need Content-Type: application/octet-stream for file download?

No.

The content-type should be whatever it is known to be, if you know it. application/octet-stream is defined as "arbitrary binary data" in RFC 2046, and there's a definite overlap here of it being appropriate for entities whose sole intended purpose is to be saved to disk, and from that point on be outside of anything "webby". Or to look at it from another direction; the only thing one can safely do with application/octet-stream is to save it to file and hope someone else knows what it's for.

You can combine the use of Content-Disposition with other content-types, such as image/png or even text/html to indicate you want saving rather than display. It used to be the case that some browsers would ignore it in the case of text/html but I think this was some long time ago at this point (and I'm going to bed soon so I'm not going to start testing a whole bunch of browsers right now; maybe later).

RFC 2616 also mentions the possibility of extension tokens, and these days most browsers recognise inline to mean you do want the entity displayed if possible (that is, if it's a type the browser knows how to display, otherwise it's got no choice in the matter). This is of course the default behaviour anyway, but it means that you can include the filename part of the header, which browsers will use (perhaps with some adjustment so file-extensions match local system norms for the content-type in question, perhaps not) as the suggestion if the user tries to save.

Hence:

Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="picture.png"

Means "I don't know what the hell this is. Please save it as a file, preferably named picture.png".

Content-Type: image/png
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="picture.png"

Means "This is a PNG image. Please save it as a file, preferably named picture.png".

Content-Type: image/png
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="picture.png"

Means "This is a PNG image. Please display it unless you don't know how to display PNG images. Otherwise, or if the user chooses to save it, we recommend the name picture.png for the file you save it as".

Of those browsers that recognise inline some would always use it, while others would use it if the user had selected "save link as" but not if they'd selected "save" while viewing (or at least IE used to be like that, it may have changed some years ago).

Examples related to http

Access blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check Axios Delete request with body and headers? Read response headers from API response - Angular 5 + TypeScript Android 8: Cleartext HTTP traffic not permitted Angular 4 HttpClient Query Parameters Load json from local file with http.get() in angular 2 Angular 2: How to access an HTTP response body? What is HTTP "Host" header? Golang read request body Angular 2 - Checking for server errors from subscribe

Examples related to browser

How to force reloading a page when using browser back button? How do we download a blob url video How to prevent a browser from storing passwords How to Identify Microsoft Edge browser via CSS? Edit and replay XHR chrome/firefox etc? Communication between tabs or windows How do I render a Word document (.doc, .docx) in the browser using JavaScript? "Proxy server connection failed" in google chrome Chrome - ERR_CACHE_MISS How to check View Source in Mobile Browsers (Both Android && Feature Phone)

Examples related to http-headers

Set cookies for cross origin requests Adding a HTTP header to the Angular HttpClient doesn't send the header, why? Passing headers with axios POST request What is HTTP "Host" header? CORS error :Request header field Authorization is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Headers in preflight response Using Axios GET with Authorization Header in React-Native App Axios get access to response header fields Custom header to HttpClient request Send multipart/form-data files with angular using $http Best HTTP Authorization header type for JWT

Examples related to download

how to download file in react js How do I download a file with Angular2 or greater Unknown URL content://downloads/my_downloads python save image from url How to download a file using a Java REST service and a data stream How to download file in swift? Where can I download Eclipse Android bundle? How to download image from url android download pdf from url then open it with a pdf reader Flask Download a File