Blue Flower

Firefox

Articles related to the Firefox Internet browser are listed here.   Look below for articles and subcategories that may get added over time.

How To Disable Firefox Non-Secure Page Login Protection And Remember Fields Again.

Introduction.

When you got a login page on an unsecured page (meaning not an https page; meaning SSL not used), a recent lame (imo) feature of Firefox is to give a warning message and not allow remembrance of the username and password without any option to disable this lame adolescent feature.  I refer to the "This Connection Is Not Secure" Message.



The above occurs when you got a unsecured page indicated by Firefox with the crossed out lock () near the top left corner next to the address entry field of the browser (if you have that enabled on your browser).  It actually blocks remembrance of any form entry, and not just username and passwords.

Please note that I do not get paid to write these articles.
This article consumed 1.5 hours to make.

 

Steps To Disable.

  1. Type "about:config" in the Firefox address bar and hit the Enter-key.



  2. Click the "I accept the risk" button.


  3. Search for security.insecure_field_warning.contextual.enabled.



  4. Double-click the found result.  This will toggle the setting to false, which disables the Warning message only. Each time it's double clicked, it toggles between enable and disable (true and false).  If you want the warning message to remain and just want to allow remembrance of the username, then you can skip this step.

  5. Search for signon.autofillForms.http by replacing the previous search done ins the search field.



  6. Double-click the found result.  This will toggle the setting to false, which allows remembering the username only. Each time it's double clicked, it toggles between enable and disable (true and false).  If you want Firefox to continue to prevent remembrance of the usernames and other field info on unsecure forms, and you just want the warning message gone, then you can skip this step.



  7. Finished.

 

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How To Unblock A Firefox Plugin That Is Disabled or Blocked

For this article, I utilized Firefox (FF) version 43.0.1, but it should apply for versions a few years after 43 (now and in future) and a decent number of versions prior to 43.

  1. Close your Firefox browser.

  2. Locate file named blocklist.xml in your computer's file system.  You can do a search on your file system for that file name, or browse down to the Firefox profile folder where it would be.  On a Windows XP and several other OSs, it would be in somewhere like C:\Documents and Settings\PCUserName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\31o8bcgj.default\blocklist.xml.  Your profile folder name would be something other than 31o8bcgj.default, as I suspect it is named individually upon installation of FF.  If you have multiple profiles using FF, then you may have multiple profile folders and thus multiple bloxklist.xml files (one in each folder), but this usually is not the case.

  3. First make a copy of the file.  I named my copy "201612151728PDT-Copy_of_blocklist.xml", which is the Timestamp formatting I invented a long time ago (1.5 to 2 decades ago), plus other formats, and it is used everywhere through out the Internet now. Side note, it shows YearMonthDayHourMinuteTimezone.  If you want, you can add seconds or an additional index number after Minute part.

  4. Edit the blocklist.xml using a simple text editor like Wordpad or Notepad.  I recommend using Wordpad instead of Notepad because Notepad won't display the line formatting and thus all the lines will be attached to each other. It will be a much easier read if you use Wordpad and still not have invisible formatting impact.

    Force Open File Via Wordpad- Win XP
  5. Locate the name of the blocked/disabled plugin. For this example, we will unblock the QuickTime Plugin.  So a search is done for quicktime within the blocklist.xml file.

  6. Remove the whole section for your plugin that is blocked, and in this example, it is the following:
        <pluginItem blockID="p408">
          <match exp="QuickTime Plugin\.plugin" name="filename"/>
          <versionRange maxVersion="7.6.5" minVersion="0" severity="0" vulnerabilitystatus="1"/>
        </pluginItem>

  7. Save the file.

  8. Open Firefox and you should see that the plugin is no longer blocked when you go to Tools>>Add-ons.

 

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 Firefox Shows "Blocked: May contain a virus or spyware" - A Fix

For no apparent reason, suddenly Firefox (FF) started blocking files that I have regularly downloaded. It does not block them upon start of download.  No, you wait till the whole data file is downloaded, and then it shows a Blocked message with no links to click on at all.  Extremely bothersome and lame.  You would see something like this:

I have tried renaming the file and downloading it to other locations, since my path names can be really long sometimes.  I utilized FF 33.1.1 for this article, but this problem exists for any FF version that has the blocking feature, since the root of the problem is due to usage of a third party service by FF, as explained further below.

Please know that I do not get paid to write these articles.  It took two or more hours to research and write this article.

It seems this problem has exists for many years, and I've been lucky so far in not experiencing it.

I've determined that without my awareness, Firefox has been slipping my personal data of what gets downloaded or what site is visited to Google's "Safe Browsing" project to determine if a download or even a website is safe.  This is so very wrong, but I cannot get into this topic, as it is a long article by itself.  A summary of what is happening is that Google (or a part of Google or affiliation to Google) has decided to deem my nonthreatening backup file that I want to download for myself as dangerous and Firefox uses that information to decide on my behalf that I don't get to download it and FF deletes the file I downloaded.  Arhg!  No choice of any kind provided to me to decide.  I understand the benefits for the general population, but the danger here is if Google's data gets corrupted or misled then it will indicate incorrectly what is bad, and it seems that is what has happened.  The whole thing reflects lack of foresight and immature code development and/or bad decision making.

The Fix

The fix is to temporarily disable the so called "Safe Browsing" feature so you can download needed file(s).

  1. On Firefox, select Tools and then Options.

    Firefox Options selected from Tools menu

  2. Go to Security, and Remove the check on the checkbox that says "Block reported attack sites", and click OK.

    Remove check on checkbox of Block reported attack sites.

  3. Retry the downloading the file that got blocked before, and now you should get it.

  4. Put things back they way they were.  Go back to the Tools>>Options>>Security and put the check back on the checkbox of Block reported attack sites, and click OK.  This will put things back the way they were. 

 

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Fixing Yahoo Cycle Prohibited Error Message On Internet Browser Of Firefox And Others.

If you are seeing something like "Cycle Prohibited, Could not process your request for the document because it would cause an HTTP proxy cycle" when using Yahoo; may it be managing identities, your mail, etc., then the following will hopefully fix your issue.  I expect the following to work for Internet Browsers like Chrome, Pale Moon, Torch, etc.

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Fix Steps

  1. On Firefox, on top menu, go to History >> Clear Recent History >> select only Cookies, Cache, and Offline Website Data >> click on Clear Now button.



  2. Go back to the URL (web address) that caused the error message and click on the link and if needed reload/refresh the page prior to clicking.

I know different versions of browsers may have different menu selection, and hopefully the above will still help you get to where you need to be.

 

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Fix For Firefox Flashblock And Youtube Click Problem

You are here most likely because you use Flashblock extension for Firefox and you found out that you can no longer click on the videos or ads to have them show on Youtube or other places.  There are at least two ways to get around your problem with Youtube and Flashblock.  We can call them a fix, but maybe not a solution, and it certainly is not a patch to the Flashblock software (extension/plugin).

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The content of this article is my opinion, and not meant to be legal advice, and presented in a best effort, and reader is responsible for usage of any methods or instructions within this article.  It probably took 5 hours or more to create this article.

If you do not care about making the flashes or flash videos require a click to be played, and just want to block flash ads while still seeing the content of Youtube, then see the articles of Flashblock Fix To See Youtube Videos And Block Flash Ads and Cannot Click On Youtube Flash Videos And Flash In General Does Not Show On Firefox. You may want to simply stop annoying flash ads; or prevent high cpu and memory usage by flash ads; or just want to be able to see Youtube videos again since you can no longer see the videos or click on them, and just see a blank/empty image.

The purpose of this article is to share the preferred Flashblock fix, found so far, to both allow the clicking choice to play a flash on Youtube (and other places) while still blocking flash ads when using Firefox. I thank the user named UseRus who's post initiated the research and creation for this article. 

Read comments for other tips and operating systems and browsers (such as other Windows OSs, Apple OSs, Linux OSs, etc, and other Firefox type of browsers).  You will need to click on the Load Previous Comments button/link to see all the comments from me and others.

Two Known Fix Methods

Method One will involve a change to a file used by Firefox and the preferred method.  You can click here to skip reading about Method Two and go directly to the steps of Method One.  This method is significantly preferred over all others, as it puts no extra load on your computer, and does not force a new software installation, and does not cause you to do something illegal unknowingly.

Method Two involves adding a separate extension/plugin known as an Ad Blocker along with Flashblock, and this method will not be presented in this article because I've determined Method One is a better fix, and because of the following issues with Method Two:

  1. It is believed that usage of many, and the most popular, Ad Blockers cause the user to commit a crime, since the Ad Blocker is in essence hacking the code of a website and presenting the hacked code to the website visitor. No website allows their site or content to be modified for viewing, and all content are protected by various laws, including copyright law;  in most cases the protections exist regardless if the site includes statements in their website usage policies or not.  As many know, ignorance of the law is not a defense in court.

  2. The Ad Blockers cause noticeable increased computer CPU (processor) and memory usage.  If you got a laptop or note pad, you can often detect this by a higher fan noise, since the CPU works harder and heats up more and the fans runs faster and thus louder to cool things more.  An Ad Blocker software's/extension's/plugin's impact and computer fan noise can vary greatly from computer to computer, since the resource and power of computers can vary greatly.  This topic can be an article or three by itself, and I cannot go into it in depth here, and so I reference you to an article I found called "AdBlock Plus could be the reason Chrome and Firefox are such memory hogs".

  3. Found compatibility issues with different versions of Firefox, and it would make for a lengthy article to include various Ad Block software usages for several versions of Firefox.


  4. As upgrades on Firefox occur, the extension/plugin software could become obsolete, and thus creating a new problem.

If you still would like to know more about using the Ad Block method (not condoned by Tech Notes), then please read the comments after the article of Flashblock Fix To See Youtube Videos And Block Flash Ads.

 

Steps For The Preferred Fix
(Method One)

The following has been tested on Firefox 33.1.1 and Windows XP, with SP3, and expected to work for most higher versions of both Firefox and Windows.  Steps provided will be mostly for Windows XP, but other Windows (Vista, 7, 8, etc.) steps might get mentioned throughout.  In the Comments section, below, others have confirmed it working on various computer OSs, such as Windows 7, and various Linux, various Firefox versions, like FF 35, and other browsers too, like Pale Moon.

    1. On your computer, open whatever file system tool you prefer.  On a windows computer, this is by default the Windows Explorer.  So, Open Windows Explorer.



      You can open Windows Explorer by:

      1. Clicking on the Windows Explorer icon.  Depending on your computer setup and windows version, this icon could be seen on Start menu, or on the Desktop, or the Quick Launch menu.  The icon would be same or similar to the one shown above.  

      2. Run Windows Explorer directly. You can do this by going to Start on your Windows XP computer or pushing the Windows key on your keyboard, and selecting Run, and then typing Explorer in the Run field.

        Windows XP Windows Explorer Access Via My Docs, My Computer, or Run

      3. You can also access a preset version of Windows Explorer by selecting My Documents or My Computer (circled in the image above).  Choose My Computer, or one of the above mentioned methods of A or B to get to your Windows Explorer.

        My Computer on Windows XP

        My Computer on Windows 7
         
    2. Go to the Firefox profiles folder.  This will be under a few folders that are located under the current Windows user you are logged in as.  In my case, for this example, a user of Owner was created to demonstrate, and so the folder path and name was
      C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
      .



      Article Update
      for Windows 7
      :
      It has been mentioned by comments section poster below that for a Windows 7 OS, the path would be something like
      C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and you would need to create the folder of Chrome mentioned in a later step.


    3. Open the Firefox profile you want fix Flashblock on.  Most likely you have only a default profile and some combination of numbers and letters exist on a folder name that ends in .default.  Such as 30o7cbgj.default in this example.

    4. Go to Chrome folder.  If not there, then create this folder. Note that in Linux/Unix based systems, it would be all lowercase letters spelled as chrome.

    5. Create a text file called userContent.css and open/edit it with Notepad or Wordpad or any other simple text editor that does not add invisible formatting characters.



      1. If you get a Rename warning message asking if you want to change the file name extension, then click Yes.



      2. And then edit/open the file.



    6. Type or copy and paste #theater-background {display:none} into the file.

    7. Save the File and close file

    8. Restart Firefox by Exiting and Opening it again.

 

DONE.  Now when you go to Youtube or anywhere else that makes use of the same "theater-background" technique layer, the Flashblock will still work as you were use to before and you can click on the video of choice to have it play, and if an Ad is in Flash, you can do the same and click on the ad to see the advertisement.

Consider Contributing

  • Article Contribution:
    Consider submitting an article of your own to Tech Notes.  I will create a sub-category for your article if needed.  Guest articles are welcome!

  • Financial Contribution:
    If you found this article or any Tech Notes article useful, or beneficial in any form, and you'd like to make a financial contribution as a simple thanks (no fear, any small amount can be given), you can use the Paypal contribution button which is safe and does not require you to have a Paypal account to make a contribution to Tech Notes.

IMO, if Flashblock has been useful for you in the past or currently, then consider making a contribution to the developer of flashblock as a simple thanks.  Yes, it suggests $5, but any amount can be given above or below; even just one dollar. The Paypal contribution button on the developer's page is as safe as the Contribution button on my site, above (left side), for contributions to Tech Notes.

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