FTP'ing a file with Netscape Navigator results in corrupted download

If you are getting a corrupted, unusable file as a result of trying to retrieve something via ftp with the Netscape Navigator, then you should make sure that the file's extension is listed in the "Helper Applications" section of the Netscape Preferences. The easiest way to do this is to select the "application/octet-stream" entry in the MIME Types list, then add your file's extension (usually three characters, but you can specify a longer or shorter one) to the "Extensions" field. The extensions in the list in that field should be separated by commas. The reason this is necessary is that if the Netscape Navigator can't find an entry in the MIME Type table for files with the extension of the one you're trying to download, then it will download your file in "ASCII mode", whereby carriage returns and linefeeds in the file will be converted to whatever's natural for your computer system -- this is quite an unhealthy thing to do to binary files.

If you're trying to download a binary file with no extension on its name, then just put the last few characters of the file's name into the "Extensions" field. The Navigator will match those characters at the end of the file's name; it doesn't care whether or not there's any period in the filename. If you've followed these instructions but your downloaded files are *still* coming across garbled, then it's possible that the web server itself isn't configured to recognize that file type properly, and by default it's telling your browser "this is an ASCII text file", which is causing the file to download in ASCII mode and get chewed on as explained above. In this case, contact the administrators of the web server you're connected to and make sure they're aware of this problem.