[javascript] starting file download with JavaScript

Why are you making server side stuff when all you need is to redirect browser to different window.location.href?

Here is code that parses ?file= QueryString (taken from this question) and redirects user to that address in 1 second (works for me even on Android browsers):

<script type="text/javascript">
    var urlParams;
    (window.onpopstate = function () {
        var match,
        pl = /\+/g,  // Regex for replacing addition symbol with a space
        search = /([^&=]+)=?([^&]*)/g,
        decode = function (s) { return decodeURIComponent(s.replace(pl, " ")); },
        query = window.location.search.substring(1);

        urlParams = {};
        while (match = search.exec(query))
            urlParams[decode(match[1])] = decode(match[2]);
    })();

    (window.onload = function() {
        var path = urlParams["file"];
        setTimeout(function() { document.location.href = path; }, 1000);
    });
</script>

If you have jQuery in your project definitely remove those window.onpopstate & window.onload handlers and do everything in $(document).ready(function () { } );