Firefox 3: Go Away, Location Bar
I've recently upgraded to Firefox 3 only to notice an ugly new security feature: in order to protect us all from nasty phishers the fine mozilla developers decided that it is for our all best if the location bar cannot be hidden anymore when a website opens up a new window via Javascript's window.open() method. Well, thank you very much guys for so much care - only, I don't like that. Actually I find it totally annoying and patronizing.
So what can be done about it? Fortunately as a self-responsible grown-up you can override the default behaviour in the Firefox presets. These presets are opened by entering "about:config" in the location field. If you do this the first time you will see a warning page in which you confirm that any change will be your own fault, just like in real life.
After confirming this you will see a long list of potentially dangerous settings. Don't touch any except for the one called dom.disable_window_open_feature.location (this list is sorted alphabetically). The default value is "true", but we want to change it to "false" which is accomplished by simply double clicking the row. The line will turn bold in order to show you that this is not the safe default value anymore.
That's all. But don't come back crying to me if some nasty phisher cleared your bank account afterwards.
Posted at July 28, 2008 07:00 PM | Further reading
why don't you like this feature? seems it's only an issue if you are popping fullscreen browser windows which is like so 2002.
(btw your comment form blocks my email address + url)
I'm writing creative design tools for a.viary.com where every piece of screen real estate is valuable and - yes we are totally oldschool in opening fullscreen browser windows for our applications.
I think it just gives more freedom to the user although more constraints to the developer. As a user I'm happy to be able to see the location, copy it and put it in a tab (even for a.viary). I don't see where it's patronizing since we have more options not like forcing a user to view a site in fullscreen mode.
It's not fullscreen mode I'm talking about - it is opening any new browser window from a script. What I don't like about in particular that it breaks exisiting sites or applications. As an alternative they could have used the same yellow bar technique that is used to show messages like "site xy tried to open a popup window" together with an option "always trust site xy"
Enter or type "config" with out quotes in the location bar. It can list out all the entries available in it. You just get through the given information regards your inconvinence..
In saying fullscreen mode I meant the window taking up my whole screen, I guess I'm oldschool that way too ;-)
Can't believe you're so short-sighted about this. Firefox has gained huge traction with "normal" (not overly technical) users who _do_ need protected wherever possible.
There's no way an edge case such as an application from a.viary requiring true full-screen should take precedence over anti-phishing changes.
As I have said in the comment above - I wouldn't mind if they had done it the same way as it is currently handled with popup blockers or plugin warnings - yellow bar on top with a "settings" button that allows me to adjust this feature individually per-site. This would also make it much clearer that this is all about security.
I just find the way it is solved now visually very ugly and the fact that it is an all-or-nothing choice pretty lame.
I'm with you Mario. Having an URL address in an online application widow is totally useless. It's not only taking allot of real estate but also block the possibility to have a custom menu bar just under the title bar. I guess these kind of annoyances will help Adobe Air gain popularity for RIA.
By the way, I'm not the other Felix complaining about his email address
Are you saying you're a self-responsible grown-up? Sure don't sound like it the way you talk. Mozilla developers didn't develop this just for you, get used to it.
Is it so obstructing? Nevertheless, the tip of modifying FF presets you shared is nice.
