The mime types feature of cPanel allows you to set up certain settings that will tell the browsers of visitors to your website how to handle specific file extensions which users might be trying to access. This means that if you are using custom file extensions within your website for whatever reason, you can use this feature to tell your visitor’s browsers how to handle the files with custom extensions, and with another feature you can configure the server to run a specific program for files of a certain custom extension that are hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The main idea of mime types if to help you as the account holder to make use of new web technologies as they become available, even if your web host doesn’t - one thing to note though is that some technologies might require some server side work in order for them to function, and not just the simple adding or modification of mime types within your web hosting account; for example when WAP technology started to enter the world of web development, many web hosts did not have their servers setup correctly to allow WAP browsers to visit and view pages which people have designed for WAP compatible devices and have chosen to host within their shared cPanel website hosting account. For the most common file extensions which you and other people who are hosted on the same server as you will most probably using, the mime types have already been setup and correctly installed for use by everyone who is hosted on the server; this means that if you are new to the concept of web hosting and want to get your website started up trouble free and are not planning on using any complicated technologies within your website, then shared cPanel based website hosting is the right type of hosting for you since with the mime types being already installed, you needn’t alter anything complicated within your shared website hosting account. As mentioned previously, if you have the necessary knowledge and want use your website a custom way in relation to the server, then you can use the mime types feature to set up custom mime types for the files which you might have hosted within your shared website hosting account; the good thing with this feature is that any custom mime types that you set up within your shared website hosting account will not affect any other websites or hosting accounts that are hosted on the same web hosting server as you, and any custom mime types which other people who are hosted on the same server as you will not have any effect on the files which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. Also, most of the main mime types have been set up by either cPanel or your web host which means that the most basic files can be run without the need for any custom mime types.

Posted on April 7th, 2008 by Nete-Quette
Filed under: Hosting