Redirect/refresh options

[Afternoonhandyman]

I've seen many posts complaining about auto refresh blocked, but not one single post mentioning that while an automatic refresh may be desired, when a webpage tries to redirect to a different webpage, a warning is preferred. A refresh is quite different from a redirect. Why hasn't Firefox recognized this and made 2 separate choices for allowing/blocking each? To further exemplify: Websites with news feeds and blogs NEED to have refreshing allowed, so they can do their job. Conversely, legitimate websites that must redirect you to accomplish their task will tell you, while those sneaky underhanded spam, scam, and virus loading redirects WON'T warn you.

My suggestions to Firefox:
1) separate the functionality of allowing/blocking META refresh and HTTP redirect
2) enhance functionality by providing the ability to allow/block by website visited.

[patrickjdempsey]

Do you have a specific site you are having a problem with? Most news feeds pages actually dynamically redraw the entire page content instead of using a browser reload.

[smsmith]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=533243

[Gingerbread Man]

Why hasn't Firefox recognized this and made 2 separate choices for allowing/blocking each?

I'm guessing because hardly anyone uses that feature in the first place. Both redirects and reloads are triggered by meta refresh; Mozilla would be splitting hairs for the sake of a small number of users. They don't even bother to implement the most minute changes that would benefit thousands if they don't like them, so...

Use an extension. It's always the solution.
RefreshBlocker

My suggestions to Firefox:

1. www.mozillazine.org/about/
2. input.mozilla.com/feedback

@smsmith
Cue James complaining about the lack of Bugzilla disclaimer in 3... 2... 1...

[Afternoonhandyman]

Do you have a specific site you are having a problem with? Most news feeds pages actually dynamically redraw the entire page content instead of using a browser reload.

My local news station: www.ky3.com is when I notice it the most.

[Afternoonhandyman]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=533243

While this link discusses the issue with Mozilla not remembering each site, it does not address the issue that a refresh and a redirect are two different animals, and need to have the option of being treated differently.

[Afternoonhandyman]

And thank you both for your efforts.

[Afternoonhandyman]

Both redirects and reloads are triggered by meta refresh;

Hmmm that's not what I was taught (ages ago) please correct me if I'm wrong, but a META refresh command has the same website reloaded, while a redirect sends you to a different (sometimes malicious) website.

Use an extension. It's always the solution.
RefreshBlocker

I will try that, and see if it distinguishes between a refresh and a redirect.

[Afternoonhandyman]

On a side note, malicious redirects are usually handled by my antivirus blacklist, so a moot point really.

[Afternoonhandyman]

Interesting disclaimer in RefreshBlocker:

About this Add-on

RefreshBlocker is a small extension for the Firefox web browser. This extension will prevent your browser from following the forwarding specified by the refresh parameter of the META tag element. If such a refresh parameter is given on a web page, an infobox will be displayed at the top of the page.

Note: This extension does not block JavaScript-based and HTTP-based redirects. If you know a way how to do this, please let me know.

[Gingerbread Man]

Both redirects and reloads are triggered by meta refresh;

Hmmm that's not what I was taught (ages ago) please correct me if I'm wrong

developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element/meta

Note: This extension does not block JavaScript-based and HTTP-based redirects. If you know a way how to do this, please let me know.

• NoRedirect takes care of HTTP redirects.
• I don't think there's any extension that focuses on Javascript redirects exclusively. You can either disable Javascript globally or though NoScript.