Sometimes it might have happened that you found yourself downloading a big ZIP or RAR archive, and realized it didn’t contain what you expected after you waited hours for it. Wouldn’t it be better to have a way to actually browse what’s inside an archive before downloading it?

Photo Credit: Rodolfo Clix - Edited by Nicolo’ Canali De Rossi

ArchView is a Firefox add-on that you can use to get a look inside any RAR or ZIP archive without downloading it, so that you can see and select which files you want.

After you install it, anytime you click on a link that bring to an archive, it will automatically load in a new Window and display, no matter how big it is (in fact I selected an archive with more than 200 files), all the files that it contains.

You can then save the archive locally, export all the files or just some of them onto your PC, but also browse the files online without downloading anything.

The settings menu lets you select which file formats ArchView should open and how it should list files.

Finally, it comes with a handy button that will be added on the right bottom of your screen, and that will allow you to activate or deactivate the extension with one click.

Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5028