This plugin enables viewing of ZIP and RAR contents and direct file opening without downloading the entire archive. It runs from the Internet Explorer context menu and supports both FTP and HTTP protocols.
When you right-click on a link, the context menu appears, and if the link leads to a ZIP or RAR archive, a window will pop up displaying the files inside that archive. From there, you can double-click or hit the "Enter" key on the file you're interested in, and it will open in the default program associated with its extension (for example, Notepad for TXT files or MS Word for DOC format). The best part? Traffic is only spent on the part of the archive where the selected file is located, so it's not wasting any bandwidth.
This software also supports both ftp:// and http:// protocols, which makes browsing archives on FTP-servers a breeze. When a link leads to an FTP-server, a simple FTP-explorer window appears, allowing you to view the contents of archives on the server as well as simple folders.
However, there are a couple of limitations to this software. It does not support continuous and multivolumed archives, which could be a dealbreaker for some users. Nevertheless, overall, the "Open in Web Archives Viewer" feature is an incredibly useful tool for anyone who deals with archives regularly.
Version 1.04: 1) HTTPS support