I've recently been working on a little project to serve static files. I want to be able to serve different types of files like:

```
html, jpg, png, pdf, doc...

```

All files seem to render correctly in different browsers without assigning a MIME type.

For example, if I serve an image and declare a MIME type I would write this in my node.js code:

```
response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'image/jpg'});
response.end(data);

```

Ignoring the MIME type will render the exact same results in different browsers:

```
response.writeHead(200);
response.end(data);

```

It is my understanding that if no MIME type is declared in the header, the browser will do its best to figure it out.

According to the [HTTP specifications](http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2388.txt), the 'Content-Type' header is not required.

> 
> As with all multipart MIME types, each part has an optional
>  "Content-Type", which defaults to text/plain.
> 
> 
> 

**Should I declare a MIME type for each response? Why?**