content: Infosec here... not quite Browsers never used to resolve file links externally.  Thats a new OS browser feature, not a flaw in tor specifically. The problem is that the browsers have gotten "smarter" and they assume the file:// protocol to be a "broken link" (something that someone didn't mean to post as a URL).  So rather than just give up... the OS goes looking for the file.  This is actually quite handy in normal usage as people fucking suck at using computers and post broken links all the time. Edit:  Will have to figure out the exact method it uses to resolve the file:// protocol before I can definitely call it a browser or OS issue... but it's not a Tor issue.