Cross-browser link to file on local system

I would like to make a link from a web page to a file on a local filesystem and make it work in all browsers (or at least in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome).

For example, the following works in Internet Explorer:

<a href="\\myserver\doc\info.pdf">Info here</a>

but not in Firefox and Chrome.

Is there a way to make a link that works in all browsers?

Or a way to use javascript to detect which browser it is and then display the appropriate link based on the filename?

Links to local files on pages that were retrieved via HTTP(S) are deliberately disabled in Mozilla/Firefox, because they can be a security risk, and have been used in attacks in the past.

You can override this behaviour, however. For details, see this article in MozillaZine.

try prefixing your url with file:///