Mozilla: Please Enable Firefox to be Downloaded on Windows Server 2008

Has anyone else noticed it is next to impossible to download Firefox from mozilla.com with Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Server 2008?

The process goes something like this:

• Visit mozilla.com
• Click on link to download Firefox for Windows.
• Get a dialog that reads: "You are attempting to download a file from a site that is not part of your Trusted Sites blah, blah, blah..." and it lists the site as http://mirror.yandex.ru (for example, your site might be different).
• So you close the dialog and add http://mirror.yandex.ru to your trusted sites list.
• Then you go click on the same link to download Firefox that you clicked on before and...
• "You are attempting to download a file from a site that is not part of your Trusted Sites blah, blah, blah..." Only this time it lists site is something different (in my case it was http://ftp.sunet.se).

What's the Problem?
The problem is caused entirely mostly by mozilla. They are "magically" rotating the mirror. Presumably this is in case the visitor clicked on a download link and it didn't work or was slower than the visitor could tolerate (though I've never had that problem).

What is Mozilla Supposed to do?
Instead of rotating the link only when you click on the download link, they should rotate the download link embedded in the main Mozilla.com page. This way the download link is the same for the user if he clicks on it a second time. Adding another link to try a different download with something like "Download not working? Click Here", that would just refresh the page, and thus rotate the download link again would still help out someone who got a poor download server.

This way, once he has added the site to our trusted sites we could get the same site -now a "Trusted Site"- again and download it. It would also be nice if Mozilla gave Windows 2008/IE7 Specific instructions to the user about using the Trusted Sites mechanism, as this certainly is not intuitive for everyone. I mean hasn't anyone at Mozilla tried to download Firefox with Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Server 2008? I don't remember whether this happened to me on Vista or not, but I sure hope not, I'm sure someone at Mozilla at least tried that and it worked. (It does work, right?)

Enough Already, How Do I Fix It?
So, enough with the Mozilla rant, to download firefox with IE7 on Windows Server 2008, take the following steps:

1. Right-Click on Internet Explorer in the start menu and select "Run as administrator".
2. Once Internet Explorer opens, click on the Tools menu (in the upper right of the browser), and select "Internet Options".
3. A dialog should appear, and you should select the "Security" tab.
4. On the Security Tab, Uncheck the "Enable Protected Mode (requires restarting Internet Explorer)" checkbox.
5. Select OK to close the dialog, close all instances of Internet Explorer.
6. Open another copy of Internet Explorer (it is not necessary to select "Run as administrator" for this step) and select "Internet Options" from the "Tools" menu again to open the Internet Options dialog.
7. Select the Security Tab again.
8. With "Internet" selected in the box at the top of the security tab, click the "Custom level..." button. This should have opened the "Security Settings - Internet Zone" dialog.
9. Scroll way down in this "Settings" tree until you see an option for "File download" and ensure select the Enable option below it.
10. Press the OK button to close the "Security Settings - Internet Zone" dialog, and press OK on the next one to close the "Internet Options" dialog.
11. Now navigate back to http://www.mozilla.com in IE (you can now even ignore the popup that might notify you about blocking content from http://www.mozilla.com, just press the Close button).
12. You should see a link to download Firefox for Windows. Press it and it should prompt you normally to download files.

Now you can return to Internet Explorer's Internet Options dialog and check the Enable Protected Mode checkbox again. Apparently Microsoft thinks that is a good idea. Don't fret too much, if you do go back and enable Protected Mode you will still be able to download files because Protected Mode doesn't prevent that, it just prevents you from modifying the Internet Zone as we did in step nine above.

As always, I hope this is helpful to someone.