Some dialogs may be very very annoying (authorization required for example)

[David (Dave) Dallet]

Binary package hint: firefox

Hi,

I just try to go on a website that is currently down, and I got an "Authorization Required" box. This behaviour is probably normal on firefox side.

However, I tried to view the same page using Google cache, and it was like a nightmare : too many "authorization required" boxes appeared (I suspect one for each "img" attribute at least). I was not able to close the "tab" (or see another tab) before I managed to close all dialog boxes (above 20 I believe).

As someone can forge a page with as many "img" tags as s/he wants and since the "pictures" may refer to a document requiring authentification, I think it's not only an usability bug. (A malicious web page may prevent the user from switching to other tabs).

My version of firefox is 3.0.5 and I'm using kubuntu 8.04 (hardy) but I wouldn't be surprised if the problem affects other versions (or even other distributions).

Regards,

David Dallet

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

changed package to firefox-3.0. I'm also thinking this is more of a website issue than a browser issue. are you able to reproduce this in aother browsers? and other sites?

[David (Dave) Dallet (ddmdllt)]

There was clearly a website issue but I think a reliable browser should not prevent from switching to other tabs if the content of one tab is "bad".

Similarly, it should be possible to close easily the tab in a such situation.

The website which was causing the error is now fully working, so I can't test the problem in other browsers in seconds.

Maybe, I should try to make a demo of the problem on my own website?

[David (Dave) Dallet (ddmdllt)]

Hi again, (and sorry for the delay)

I just made very quickly a demo page for the problem.

Warning / Disclaimer : Going on the page may make your browser have a very annoying behaviour. You proceed at your own risk.
URL of the demo page : http://www.ddmdllt.org/weblog/posts/2009/02/27/firefox-problem-demo-password-protected/
You will to enter the following password, without the quotes : "iKnowWhatIAmDoing"

David Dallet

[David (Dave) Dallet (ddmdllt)]

Oh, I forgot : My version of firefox is now 3.0.6 (problem not changed) and I noticed that Epiphany Web Browser 2.22.2 has exactly the same problem.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 195698, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[David (Dave) Dallet (ddmdllt)]

Hi,

I think the problem I described is not really a duplicate of bug 195698.

Bug 195698 says (I summarize) that it is annoying (in the particular case described) to type multiple times the *same* login/password info in multiple tabs.

What I was saying was:
* A page can cause a lot of "Authorization Required" box (I don't even know if there is a limit) to appear; by the way each login/password information expected may be different (or it is just possible that a valid login doesn't exist).
* Each time an "Authorization Required" appears, it is quite impossible to continue to work in the relevant tag : this is annoying because a visitor may just want to continue to read a text without the pictures causing the 401 HTTP status. This is a minor usability bug.
* It is impossible to continue to work in other tabs too : that is the real problem : a malicious page can prevent you to continue to work in other tabs.

You may try the demo page if you don't exactly understand the problem (You will just have to use 10 times the "cancel" button to exit, and you may have to move the dialog box after trying to see another tab, it seems that there is an order with these multiple dialogs).

By the way, I'm now using Firefox 3.5.2pre (from backports) with the kubuntu 8.04 and I still have the problem.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Bug 195698 is about serializing the requests for Authorization Required boxes so that only one appears at a time.
As for the tab itself not being usable, that is probably due to bad design on part of the website vs something Firefox can fix.
Not being able to continue working in other tabs is something I believe they are working on. Would you like that make this bug about the last point?