Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

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Fangs404: Dec 20, 2004; I time bomb.

Pilsner posted:

Can anyone think of a way to make Firefox not even respond to system calls that open a specific URL or domain? My issue is that I have a "freemium" application that does a nag browser call every once in a while. I'm 99% sure it does this simply by calling "http://www.nagwebsite.com" as a system command. This is interpreted a HTTP protocol call of course, which makes Firefox handle it and load the site. I want to intercept this so FF, or any other default browser, doesn't even respond.

Any ideas? I tried an FF addon called BlockSite, but it doesn't prevent FF from handling the call and make a new (blank) tab.

You could edit the hosts file to prevent the site from loading, but I'm not sure how to get FF to straight up ignore the system call.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 20:51

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:31

Standish: May 21, 2001

Pilsner posted:

Can anyone think of a way to make Firefox not even respond to system calls that open a specific URL or domain?

You could try this:http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/url_protocol_view.html

# ? Apr 5, 2013 21:28

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Escape no longer stops animated gifs (or forces network connections closed on the active tab). WONTFIX

Since browsing SA with no way to stop gifs can be a giant pain, here's the workaround to go exactly back to the old behavior:
1. Add SuperStop for a hotkey-based full stop, by default bound to shift+esc (a terrible bind because that's also the windows minimize hotkey)
2. Use Customizable Shortcuts to rebind the lovely new stop to some other key and SuperStop to plain escape.

# ? Apr 6, 2013 13:03

HalloKitty: Sep 30, 2005; Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Pilsner posted:

Can anyone think of a way to make Firefox not even respond to system calls that open a specific URL or domain? My issue is that I have a "freemium" application that does a nag browser call every once in a while. I'm 99% sure it does this simply by calling "http://www.nagwebsite.com" as a system command. This is interpreted a HTTP protocol call of course, which makes Firefox handle it and load the site. I want to intercept this so FF, or any other default browser, doesn't even respond.

Any ideas? I tried an FF addon called BlockSite, but it doesn't prevent FF from handling the call and make a new (blank) tab.

Just do it the good old fashioned way and add it to your system hosts file..

Edit: oh wait, sorry, it will still of course try to launch the browser with a local or nonsense address

# ? Apr 6, 2013 14:13

Pilsner: Nov 23, 2002

Hah! Solved the problem myself by writing a little application that intercepts all HTTP protocol calls and blocks certain URLs. I set the program to be called under the follow registry key:

code:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command

Works like a charm and took 30 minutes to write. Being a developer is good stuff :smug:

. Here's the code if anyone's interested, not that it has anything to do with Firefox though.

code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
	if(args.Length > 0)
	{
		using(TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "HttpHandlerLog.txt"), true))
		{
			tw.WriteLine(String.Format("{0}: {1}", DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"), args[0].ToString()));
		}
	}

	if (args.Length > 0 && !args[0].Contains("everquest.com/free-to-play"))
	{
		Process proc = new Process();
		proc.StartInfo.FileName = @"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe";
		proc.StartInfo.Arguments = String.Format("-osint -url \"{0}\"", args[0]);

		proc.Start();
	}
}

# ? Apr 6, 2013 16:10

PaganGoatPants: Jan 18, 2012; TODAY WAS THE SPECIAL SALE DAY!; Grimey Drawer

So I'm using Firefox on my Mac and I have it fullscreen. When I watch a youtube video etc and make that fullscreen, after I esc from fullscreen the entire browser drops out of fullscreen. How do I not have it do this?

# ? Apr 7, 2013 05:02

Ihmemies: Oct 6, 2012

Klyith posted:

Escape no longer stops animated gifs (or forces network connections closed on the active tab). WONTFIX

Since browsing SA with no way to stop gifs can be a giant pain, here's the workaround to go exactly back to the old behavior:
1. Add SuperStop for a hotkey-based full stop, by default bound to shift+esc (a terrible bind because that's also the windows minimize hotkey)
2. Use Customizable Shortcuts to rebind the lovely new stop to some other key and SuperStop to plain escape.

Thanks, SuperStop was what I needed to make Firefox work again as intended. Whoever got this extra lovely idea idea to disable functionality which was perfectly working and not in need of a change, needs that WONTFIX tag stuffed should I say where...

# ? Apr 7, 2013 17:16

gary oldmans diary: Sep 26, 2005

So Firefox on Windows can decode h.264, but only on using the h.264 decoder that comes installed with Windows 7/8? Using FFDShow or CoreAVC or whatever is a no-go?

I'm trying the nightly, with media.windows-media-foundation.enabled=true, and viewing Youtube in html5 (with WebM disabled to boot), but the icon I expect to see in the Windows notification bar when my preferred decoder is in use doesn't show and CPU usage increases twice as much viewing fullscreen HD compared to just watching the downloaded MP4 (plus playback isn't as smooth as it should be).

gary oldmans diary fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 7, 2013

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:08

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Hogburto posted:

So Firefox on Windows can decode h.264, but only on using the h.264 decoder that comes installed with Windows 7/8? Using FFDShow or CoreAVC or whatever is a no-go?

They can't afford to pay the license fees to distribute a decoder. Using an open source decoder makes no difference, you still have to pay.

You have paid your MPEG-LA licensing fees for the copy of FFDShow you installed on your computer, right?

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:14

Magic Underwear: May 14, 2003; Young Orc

Ihmemies posted:

Thanks, SuperStop was what I needed to make Firefox work again as intended. Whoever got this extra lovely idea idea to disable functionality which was perfectly working and not in need of a change, needs that WONTFIX tag stuffed should I say where...

They did this with F6 too. I might be mangling the history, but for the longest time F6 would highlight the URL in the url bar. People got really used to this behavior, and then they "fixed" it because F6 was supposed to do something different all along. Eventually they figured out that nobody gave a gently caress what F6 was "supposed" to do originally, they just wanted the old behavior back.

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:21

gary oldmans diary: Sep 26, 2005

Klyith posted:

They can't afford to pay the license fees to distribute a decoder. Using an open source decoder makes no difference, you still have to pay.

You have paid your MPEG-LA licensing fees for the copy of FFDShow you installed on your computer, right?

That shouldn't be the problem.

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/M4V/Pages/Licensees.aspx posted:

122. CoreCodec, Inc.

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx posted:

207. CoreCodec, Inc.

E: To my original question: That media.windows-media-foundation.enabled only enables support for the specific h.264 codec that ships with Windows?

gary oldmans diary fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 7, 2013

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:22

Avenging Dentist: Oct 1, 2005; oh my god is that a circular saw that does not go in my mouth aaaaagh

Hogburto posted:

E: To my original question: That media.windows-media-foundation.enabled only enables support for the specific h.264 codec that ships with Windows?

Correct.

Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Apr 7, 2013

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:40

gary oldmans diary: Sep 26, 2005

Bummer. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

Edit: But apparently some things get more and more perfect all the time.

gary oldmans diary fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Apr 7, 2013

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:41

Avenging Dentist: Oct 1, 2005; oh my god is that a circular saw that does not go in my mouth aaaaagh

Oh, and to address your issue with CPU usage spiking, that's because Firefox doesn't use hardware acceleration for h.264 video yet. However, a patch to do so is in progress: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=847267

# ? Apr 7, 2013 21:46

~Coxy: Dec 9, 2003; R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD

Maybe Mozilla should stop wasting its money on lovely smartphone OSes and then they could implement H.264 properly.

# ? Apr 8, 2013 04:24

Avenging Dentist: Oct 1, 2005; oh my god is that a circular saw that does not go in my mouth aaaaagh

~Coxy posted:

Maybe Mozilla should stop wasting its money on lovely smartphone OSes and then they could implement H.264 properly.

EDIT: Fine I'll be nice (why I'm doing this is beyond me).

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved in Mozilla projects, it being open source and all. If you're not happy with the things an open source project is prioritizing, then get involved (this can include writing patches, or even just helping test pre-releases). That's what I did with Thunderbird.

Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Apr 8, 2013

# ? Apr 8, 2013 07:37

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Before posting in this thread (or anywhere), please ask yourself "would Slashdot consider this a bad post?" If the answer is yes, you should probably post it in YOSPOS or not at all.

# ? Apr 8, 2013 07:44

Ryokurin: Jul 14, 2001; Wanna Die?

~Coxy posted:

Maybe Mozilla should stop wasting its money on lovely smartphone OSes and then they could implement H.264 properly.

Although people tend to just say it's a license cost issue, there's more to it than that. For example, even if they did pay there's still restrictions that prevent its use if you build from source or add extensions to Firefox. This especially would have been a pain the rear end for Linux users. In the end they would likely have to compromise similar to how they are now; tie into the capabilities of the hardware/OS

# ? Apr 8, 2013 14:14

beejay: Apr 7, 2002

Heads up if you are installing Firefox 20.0 in an environment where profile folders are redirected to a server or similar.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=857672

Basically, the search bar completely breaks and some functionality of the address bar breaks as well. Found this out after deploying over the weekend and coming in today to some unhappy users. Has to do with a new version of sqlite/Places in 20.0 and they are planning to fix it later this week in 20.0.1.

# ? Apr 8, 2013 18:23

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

A few minutes ago, firefox hung up because I've left it open for too long, as it does. So I used task manager to shut it down (for the first time on a new windows 7 computer)... only to restore a previous session with no logins or bookmarks. I restarted my computer and the boomarks came back... but none of the logins did. First time I've encountered this particular problem - what caused it, and how do I avoid it when I next shut down firefox?

Edit - Oh yeah, and it also killed youtube on firefox. I get a big black rectangle with no other features in the video play window.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Apr 9, 2013

# ? Apr 9, 2013 06:46

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

I had this same problem a couple months back, but it started yesterday again.

Mac OS X 10.8.3, 2010 iMac. Rebooting didn't fix it and I also upgraded from Firefox 19 to 20 and that didn't help either.

Edit:
Safari started doing it too. Ugh.

Bob Morales fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Apr 10, 2013

# ? Apr 10, 2013 15:54

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Bob Morales posted:

I had this same problem a couple months back, but it started yesterday again.

Mac OS X 10.8.3, 2010 iMac. Rebooting didn't fix it and I also upgraded from Firefox 19 to 20 and that didn't help either.

1. How did you fix the problem before?
2. Follow the troubleshooting steps in the OP if that doesn't work.

WattsvilleBlues fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Apr 10, 2013

# ? Apr 10, 2013 19:03

gary oldmans diary: Sep 26, 2005

I'd try disabling hardware acceleration for anything exhibiting video output that garbled (Tools > Options > Advanced (tab) > "Use hardware acceleration when available").
Then looking for graphics driver updates. Starting Firefox's safe mode and testing extensions if that doesn't help.

# ? Apr 10, 2013 22:30

Modus Trollens: Sep 12, 2010

Hogburto posted:

I'd try disabling hardware acceleration for anything exhibiting video output that garbled (Tools > Options > Advanced (tab) > "Use hardware acceleration when available").
Then looking for graphics driver updates. Starting Firefox's safe mode and testing extensions if that doesn't help.

Preferences > Advanced > General on OSX

# ? Apr 10, 2013 22:32

Dr Blah PhD: Aug 11, 2007; Property of tithin

It seems this aint normal. Aside from the usual add-ons (adblock, no script, down them all, etc) I normally have about 5 -7 tabs open at once. The only real suspect issue is that I don't normally close firefox everyday. Someone suggested that it might be a memory leak of an add on, but I have no idea how to find the suspect. Everything, including add ons, and flash are up to date.
Also, I'm frequently getting "adobe has crashed" errors when loading some videos. Is that related somehow, or is it just the nature of flash?

# ? Apr 13, 2013 04:23

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Dr Blah PhD posted:

It seems this aint normal. Aside from the usual add-ons (adblock, no script, down them all, etc) I normally have about 5 -7 tabs open at once. The only real suspect issue is that I don't normally close firefox everyday. Someone suggested that it might be a memory leak of an add on, but I have no idea how to find the suspect. Everything, including add ons, and flash are up to date.
Also, I'm frequently getting "adobe has crashed" errors when loading some videos. Is that related somehow, or is it just the nature of flash?

Add-ons are the usual cause of high memory usage like that, I think DownThemAll has been known to do that. I'd turn off anything that isn't very important to you, or try looking for lighter-weight alternatives. Definitely also disable any plug-ins that aren't required, you usually need Flash but VERY rarely need Java or anything else, aside from maybe Silverlight for Netflix. If you're using a non-Microsoft antivirus/firewall/Internet security suite program, that can also cause issues with Firefox. McAfee was notorious for their protection plug-in causing huge memory leaks. You can also go to about :config and change the "plugins.click_to_play" setting to True, this will prevent plugins from loading until you click on them on the page, improving load times and security.

If none of the above helps enough, you can use the Reset Firefox feature mentioned in the OP to build a new profile and reimport your data. You will need to reinstall your add-ons.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 04:47

Dr Blah PhD: Aug 11, 2007; Property of tithin

Geez, Id rather not do the restart option, thats pretty inconvenient. But if anyones familiar with plug ins (unfortunately I dont know if theyre already depreciated and useless/suspects), heres the list I have: Adblock, chatzilla, download statusbar, download helper, down them all, exhentai easy (shameless, I know), https everywhere, multilinks, no script, skip screen.
Its a very minimal list compared to others. But also, there was an about:config page specifically for viewing add on memory usage? Also, Im using MSE, with nothing related to mcaffe installed.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 05:31

Buff Skeleton: Oct 24, 2005

Dr Blah PhD posted:

Geez, Id rather not do the restart option, thats pretty inconvenient. But if anyones familiar with plug ins (unfortunately I dont know if theyre already depreciated and useless/suspects), heres the list I have: Adblock, chatzilla, download statusbar, download helper, down them all, exhentai easy (shameless, I know), https everywhere, multilinks, no script, skip screen.
Its a very minimal list compared to others. But also, there was an about :config page specifically for viewing add on memory usage? Also, Im using MSE, with nothing related to mcaffe installed.

It's important to note the distinction between addons (which you've listed here) and plugins, which are things installed on your computer that the browser links into. Plugins can't be removed without uninstalling the applications they're associated with, but they can be disabled in Firefox (and should be if you don't need them). Addons are entirely up to you and can be removed or disabled.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 05:48

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Dr Blah PhD posted:

Geez, Id rather not do the restart option, thats pretty inconvenient. But if anyones familiar with plug ins (unfortunately I dont know if theyre already depreciated and useless/suspects), heres the list I have: Adblock, chatzilla, download statusbar, download helper, down them all, exhentai easy (shameless, I know), https everywhere, multilinks, no script, skip screen.
Its a very minimal list compared to others. But also, there was an about :config page specifically for viewing add on memory usage? Also, Im using MSE, with nothing related to mcaffe installed.

There's about :memory, but it's pretty technical and not very helpful. I'd try disabling your download-related addons, HTTPS everywhere, and multilinks and see if things get better. Also make sure you have the latest video drivers installed (Beta drivers if you have an AMD card).

# ? Apr 13, 2013 06:23

Dr Blah PhD: Aug 11, 2007; Property of tithin

Well, I disabled all add ons and ran firefox for a few minutes. At minimum, its still hitting more than half a gig (sometimes like over 600, 000k). I tried disabling the javas, but that didnt yield any positive results, though I think Ill leave them off to see if theyre suspects in crashes.

And thanks for the heads up about plug ins and add ons, such a rookie mistake :blush:

# ? Apr 13, 2013 07:06

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

Interesting bit of info on the awful new Check Plugins page:

Mozilla posted:

How can Firefox help me?

In the future, Firefox will update plugins for you.

Anyone know how they're going to handle this? Will flash be bundled as in Chrome? If so, what about other plugins that need you to run an executable?

# ? Apr 13, 2013 12:28

PaganGoatPants: Jan 18, 2012; TODAY WAS THE SPECIAL SALE DAY!; Grimey Drawer

How much memory SHOULD it be using? I'm at 800MB.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 13:05

withak: Jan 15, 2003; Fun Shoe

PaganGoatPants posted:

How much memory SHOULD it be using? I'm at 800MB.

Don't worry about it.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 13:39

HalloKitty: Sep 30, 2005; Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Dr Blah PhD posted:

It seems this aint normal. Aside from the usual add-ons (adblock, no script, down them all, etc) I normally have about 5 -7 tabs open at once. The only real suspect issue is that I don't normally close firefox everyday. Someone suggested that it might be a memory leak of an add on, but I have no idea how to find the suspect. Everything, including add ons, and flash are up to date.
Also, I'm frequently getting "adobe has crashed" errors when loading some videos. Is that related somehow, or is it just the nature of flash?

I have literally just this page open, and my usage is only roughly half:

So I guess.. buy more RAM, don't give a gently caress?

# ? Apr 13, 2013 16:46

Lum: Aug 13, 2003

WattsvilleBlues posted:

Anyone know how they're going to handle this? Will flash be bundled as in Chrome? If so, what about other plugins that need you to run an executable?

Don't know how FF is going to handle it, but if you want to handle this right now, Secunia PSI is free and does a very good job, though personally I'd go with V2 as the interface in V3 is a bit crap.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 17:05

Jippa: Feb 13, 2009

Using the latest version of ff can I change the refresh button back to it's old size (spergy I know)?

# ? Apr 13, 2013 17:21

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

HalloKitty posted:

I have literally just this page open, and my usage is only roughly half:

Ditch flash. I don't get to 500 even after multiple hours of dozens of tabs and panorama groups.

Jippa posted:

Using the latest version of ff can I change the refresh button back to it's old size (spergy I know)?

Right-click on the bar and select customize. Any object between the address bar and the stop & reload buttons will keep them full size and not sucked into the bar. Or you can reposition them on the left side of the address bar to break up the combined forward back button thing as well.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 18:42

gary oldmans diary: Sep 26, 2005

I think dumping flash altogether is a bit much. I prefer to just use NoScript with a very short whitelist. One-stop-shop to block flash and javascript everywhere I want and nowhere I don't. Like click_to_play on a one-time, site-wide basis.
There are occasional circumstances where that's not optimal, but it's easy to allow and revoke temporary permissions.

# ? Apr 13, 2013 21:09

DemonDarkhorse: Nov 5, 2011; It's probably not tobacco. You just need to start wiping front-to-back from now on.

I'm trying to use the add-on Stealthy, but the icon to turn it off and on has disappeared. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling and restarting FF, but that's about the limit of my knowledge. Where'd it go, and how can I get it back?

# ? Apr 14, 2013 03:46

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:31

Dodoman: Feb 26, 2009; A moment of laxity
A lifetime of regret; Lipstick Apathy

HalloKitty posted:

I have literally just this page open, and my usage is only roughly half:

So I guess.. buy more RAM, don't give a gently caress?

That's definitely odd. I only have a single tab open and I'm using 293mb of RAM.

# ? Apr 14, 2013 05:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

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