TIFF image display in web browsers using QT plugin is utterly broken...

From here your tiff example opens in a browser.

Works fine for me, too.
MIME Settings tabs.
Why would you want to use TIFF when a JPEG file could be ten times smaller in size?
Why do you need to use the QuickTime browser plug-in to display your file?

Fine on this intel machine as well.

Actually, after reading this message, I really don't know if I could tell if the .tiff is opening in the browser using the plugin or using some Safari ability to open .tiffs My only hint is that the browser plugin removes references to QuickTime content from the 'Activity' window. Since the .tiff shows up in there, I'm assuming that it is NOT opening using the QuickTime browser plugin.

What are the exact steps to test this?

System Preferences / QuickTime / Advanced tab
Click the MIME Settings tab
Under Images toggle (click on the little triangle) to view the image formats that will be used by the QuickTime browser plug-in.
Place a check mark for TIFF and quit and relaunch your browser to test.
The original poster's file opens just fine using the QuickTime browser plug-in (Safari 3.1 and Leopard) because I've assigned that preference.

It was defaulted to on. I turned it off, and it still works. So is the plugin still working even though it's been turned off or does Safari have built-in tiff display capabilities?

Sarari palys it...

Firefox, Opera, Camino, SeaMonkey, Real Payer (browser) and Sahira all have Quicktime question mark logos. Opera post an error, "this version of Quicktime can't play this..."

The Quicktime player itself can't open your tif.

So, I took you image and brought it into Photoshop and resaved it as a tif. Now it opens in all browser. I would say there something amiss with your tif.

http://www.setfreedenver.org/trassh/Olympics800.tif

???

You can also open your tif in Preview and do a SAVE AS...this tiff will open in all the above browsers.

I just tried both URL's with "Open URL" in QuickTime. The original TIF reports "Alert: The URL is not valid". So that's another clear indicator, too. Would I be correct to guess that Safari ignores the MIME checkbox since it appears to have a built in TIFF interpreter, BUT it applies for browsers that don't have built in TIFF support (which appears to be all the others.)?

BTW, downloading the file and pointing QuickTime to it locally gives the following error.

Operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error -8969.)

And I believe that error is codecBadDataErr
http://17.254.2.129/Java/Reference/1.4/Java14API_QTJ/constant-values.html#quickt ime.Errors.codecBadDataErr

Sherlock Kyn:
I found similar results (QuickTime 6 and 7) and find even more odd things about the file.
After downloading neither 6 or 7 could open the file (no suitable decompressor found).
GraphicConverter (my image editor of choice) shows the format to be:
TIFF (R), Little-Endian, No compression/Tiled/Non Planar with this XMP data
<?xpacket begin="Ôªø" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 4.1-c7A3AFBCC6DF69FEF3E01B942EFC19</tiff:NativeDigest>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:exif=" http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/">
<exif:ExifVersion>0221</exif:ExifVersion>
<exif:ExposureTime>1/10</exif:ExposureTime>
<exif:ShutterSpeedValue>3321928/1000000</exif:ShutterSpeedValue>
<exif:FNumber>29/1</exif:FNumber>
<exif:ApertureValue>9715962/1000000</exif:ApertureValue>
<exif:ExposureProgram>3</exif:ExposureProgram>
<exif:DateTimeOriginal>2007-01-28T13:19:06-08:00</exif:DateTimeOriginal>
<exif:DateTimeDigitized>2007-01-28T1036 46.276720, Mon Feb 19 2007 22:13:43 ">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:tiff="http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/">
<tiff:Make>Canon</tiff:Make>
<tiff:Model>Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL</tiff:Model>
<tiff:ImageWidth>500</tiff:ImageWidth>
<tiff:ImageLength>333</tiff:ImageLength>
<tiff:SamplesPerPixel>3</tiff:SamplesPerPixel>
<tiff:BitsPerSample>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>8</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>8</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>8</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</tiff:BitsPerSample>
<tiff:PhotometricInterpretation>2</tiff:PhotometricInterpretation>
<tiff:XResolution>5000000/10000</tiff:XResolution>
<tiff:YResolution>5000000/10000</tiff:YResolution>
<tiff:ResolutionUnit>2</tiff:ResolutionUnit>
<tiff:Compression>1</tiff:Compression>
<tiff:PlanarConfiguration>1</tiff:PlanarConfiguration>
<tiff:Orientation>1</tiff:Orientation>
<tiff:NativeDigest>256,257,258,259,262,274,277,284,530,531,282,283,296,301,318, 319,529,532,306,270,271,272,305,315,33432;FFA3:19:06-08:00</exif:DateTimeDigitiz ed>
<exif:ExposureBiasValue>-1/3</exif:ExposureBiasValue>
<exif:MaxApertureValue>496875/100000</exif:MaxApertureValue>
<exif:MeteringMode>5</exif:MeteringMode>
<exif:FocalLength>200/1</exif:FocalLength>
<exif:ISOSpeedRatings>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>100</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</exif:ISOSpeedRatings>
<exif:Flash rdf:parseType="Resource">
<exif:Fired>False</exif:Fired>
</exif:Flash>
<exif:PixelXDimension>500</exif:PixelXDimension>
<exif:PixelYDimension>333</exif:PixelYDimension>
<exif:ColorSpace>-1</exif:ColorSpace>
<exif:NativeDigest>36864,40960,40961,37121,37122,40962,40963,37510,40964,36867, 36868,33434,33437,34850,34852,34855,34856,37377,37378,37379,37380,37381,37382,37 383,37384,37385,37386,37396,41483,41484,41486,41487,41488,41492,41493,41495,4172 8,41729,41730,41985,41986,41987,41988,41989,41990,41991,41992,41993,41994,41995, 41996,42016,0,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,3 0;C108F5D795A53F71E7661B4DAC4F631E</exif:NativeDigest>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:xap="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/">
<xap:ModifyDate>2007-07-06T20:02:19-07:00</xap:ModifyDate>
<xap:Label/>
<xap:CreatorTool>Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh</xap:CreatorTool>
<xap:CreateDate>2007-07-06T20:02:19-07:00</xap:CreateDate>
<xap:MetadataDate>2007-07-06T20:02:19-07:00</xap:MetadataDate>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:aux="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/aux/">
<aux:LensInfo>28/1 200/1 0/0 0/0</aux:LensInfo>
<aux:Lens>28.0-200.0 mm</aux:Lens>
<aux:Firmware>1.1.1</aux:Firmware>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:lr="http://ns.adobe.com/lightroom/1.0/">
<lr:hierarchicalKeywords>aGllcmFyY2hpY2FsS2V5d29yZHMgPSB7Cn0K</lr:hierarchicalK eywords>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<dc:format>image/tiff</dc:format>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:photoshop="http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/">
<photoshop:ColorMode>3</photoshop:ColorMode>
<photoshop:ICCProfile>ProPhoto RGB</photoshop:ICCProfile>
<photoshop:History/>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description rdf:about=""
xmlns:xapMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/">
<xapMM:DerivedFrom rdf:parseType="Resource"/>
<xapMM:InstanceID>uuid:BDAAD0342D8D11DC8438E56ECCDCF1E8</xapMM:InstanceID>
<xapMM:DocumentID>uuid:BDAAD0332D8D11DC8438E56ECCDCF1E8</xapMM:DocumentID>
</rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>
The image was taken using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel on Mon Feb 19 2007 22:13:43
Maybe all the more reason to use JPEG in a html file?