FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

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dolphins
Posts: 41
Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

Hello all,

I recently applied the following tweak and it seemed to fix my issue with pages loading slowly.
enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named accessibility.force_disabled. double-click it, change its value to 1 and restart firefox once.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/quest ... er-1032089

Does anyone know what the value '1' does?

I just want to be sure I'm not exposing myself, uh um... I mean my browser. :)


EDIT: Dag nabbit, the tweak didn't work after all.

And it does not happen to all web pages. This page> https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Was ... ity-140801 is slow to load.
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therube
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Location: Maryland USA

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by therube »

is slow to load
Can't fathom why?
Seems like a rather basic page.

Run in Safe Mode for a bit & see if the issue repeats itself.


(Found my brother's name. He's dead. Turns out there is a guy in NY, same name & is politically active.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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dolphins
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Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

therube wrote:
is slow to load
Can't fathom why?
Seems like a rather basic page.

Run in Safe Mode for a bit & see if the issue repeats itself.


(Found my brother's name. He's dead. Turns out there is a guy in NY, same name & is politically active.)
Sorry, I was busy trying to figure out some NoScript issues and forgot about this post. When in safe mode everything loads fast so it's a process of elimination now.

It may be a while before I figure out what's causing the slow down while the kinks are being ironed out with the new WebExtensions, e.g. NoScript.

If the mods wish to close this out, that's okay by me.
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Gingerbread Man
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Joined: January 30th, 2007, 10:55 am

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by Gingerbread Man »

Hello,

Are pages ever unusually slow to load in the same tab, or only when you open them in a new tab?

accessibility.force_disabled stores the value of the "Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser" setting which you can find under about:preferences#privacy
0 (default) let the operating system decide; -1 always on; 1 always off
If disabled, accessibility software like screen readers for the visually impaired cannot interact with Firefox. Support article for details: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/accessibility-services

Source code comment for the technical background:
// We want the ability to forcibly disable platform a11y, because
// some non-a11y-related components attempt to bring it up. See bug
// 538530 for details about Windows; we have a pref here that allows it
// to be disabled for performance and testing resons.
// See bug 761589 for the crossplatform aspect.
//
// This pref is checked only once, and the browser needs a restart to
// pick up any changes.
//
// Values are -1 always on. 1 always off, 0 is auto as some platform perform
// further checks.
pref("accessibility.force_disabled", 0);
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dolphins
Posts: 41
Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

Gingerbread Man wrote:Hello,

Are pages ever unusually slow to load in the same tab, or only when you open them in a new tab?

accessibility.force_disabled stores the value of the "Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser" setting which you can find under about:preferences#privacy
0 (default) let the operating system decide; -1 always on; 1 always off
If disabled, accessibility software like screen readers for the visually impaired cannot interact with Firefox. Support article for details: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/accessibility-services

Source code comment for the technical background:
// We want the ability to forcibly disable platform a11y, because
// some non-a11y-related components attempt to bring it up. See bug
// 538530 for details about Windows; we have a pref here that allows it
// to be disabled for performance and testing resons.
// See bug 761589 for the crossplatform aspect.
//
// This pref is checked only once, and the browser needs a restart to
// pick up any changes.
//
// Values are -1 always on. 1 always off, 0 is auto as some platform perform
// further checks.
pref("accessibility.force_disabled", 0);
Thank you for answering my original question, much appreciated.

As for your question. The page I linked above is one of a few that I'm aware of so far that load slow. It doesn't matter if it's the same tab or new, FF queries for 3 to 5 seconds before I'm able to scroll. It happens over an over if I hit the back button or reload the page.
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dolphins
Posts: 41
Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

Update:

Clicking on the above page evokes the https padlock icon to go from green to yellow warning because of the cross-site linking in the page. The last to load is the tracking protection shield. I am unable to scroll until the shield loads.

Image

FYI: Disabling 'tracking protection' does not make it load faster.
Last edited by dolphins on December 3rd, 2017, 12:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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therube
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Location: Maryland USA

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by therube »

(That's odd how the "thumbnail" shot from imgbox displays a fullsized "snippet" of your original screenshot, rather then an actual thumbnail sized shot of the entire picture.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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dolphins
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Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

therube wrote:(That's odd how the "thumbnail" shot from imgbox displays a fullsized "snippet" of your original screenshot, rather then an actual thumbnail sized shot of the entire picture.)
I must have hit 'square' instead of 'resized' thumbnail. I fixed it for you. :)
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therube
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Location: Maryland USA

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by therube »

Do you have the Pref, privacy.trackingprotection.enabled set to 'true'?
Is so, set it to false & test.

And then there have been some threads about... what was it... slow TLS handshake (or something like that).
Maybe you're running into that.


As a test, create a new, clean Profile, & test the page in there.
If still no good, disable your A/V & test again.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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dolphins
Posts: 41
Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

therube wrote:Do you have the Pref, privacy.trackingprotection.enabled set to 'true'?
Is so, set it to false & test.
Tried but no joy
And then there have been some threads about... what was it... slow TLS handshake (or something like that).
Maybe you're running into that.
Not having any handshake issues
As a test, create a new, clean Profile, & test the page in there.
As I mentioned above restarting in safe mode fixes the problem so I'll try with a clean profile.
If still no good, disable your A/V & test again.
I disabled "File System Shield" in Avast but there was no change. I disabled everything else in Avast during the install so no web-shield or mail-shield or anything else but file system shield. Nothing else I can do outside of uninstalling Avast which I don't think is the problem.
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dolphins
Posts: 41
Joined: April 11th, 2013, 4:38 pm

Re: FF 57 Accessibility Tweak

Post by dolphins »

Ah hah!

It appears to be a NoScript issue.

1. Created a new profile, disabled Avast and rebooted..
2. Tested and then re-enabled Avast and still no problems.
3. Installed NoScript in the new Profile and problem returns.
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