I'm developing a download section to a secure area of my company's web site.

The problem I have is how to allow client's to select a file for download, but for them not to see the actual URL to the FTP site, which contains the username and password.

Simple <A> tags are no good since the status bar always shows the full URL.

I've tried messing with page redirection, whereby the link jumps to another page, i.e.

Download_Manager.aspx?DownloadID=123

And this page then redirects to the relavent FTP address. This works to some extent, however I find the URL still appears in the Browser title bar while the browser searches for the FTP location.

Another problem is the URL can still be intercepted if the user stops the browser while the FTP address is being searched for.

I've also tried using <IFRAME SRC="ftp://xxxxxxx"> type elements, but then the parent window does not close when downloading commences, and also you could find the URL by looking at the HTML source code.

What I'd ideally like, which I've seen on similar download sites, is a page to popup saying...

Please wait...downloading will commence shortly.

while the browser searches for the FTP location. Then as soon as the download begins, the browser window closes down.

Has anyone suggestions on achieving this? Its quite a lengthy question, so if anything isn't clear, please let me know.

Thanks.