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Force URL to display on mouse hover

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by finitarry

KeyserX
KeyserX
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With some advertising pictures, firefox will not display the destination URL at the lower left in the little gray box when I hover the mouse over it. They are undoubtedly links though, because clicking them will redirect me to the respective websites of the advertiser.

Hiding the URLs of links to the user is extremely questionable security-wise (I shouldn't know where I'm going until I click the link?) and I would like to force my browser to show it no matter what the website would specify. Optimally, I would like to be able to do this without breaking any other integral parts of the browser/the site.

I am using 45.0.1, the problem is reproducible (there are often banners on for example gamestar.de where this happens) and persists in safe mode.

Is there a config switch I can set to fix this?

Thanks for the help!

With some advertising pictures, firefox will not display the destination URL at the lower left in the little gray box when I hover the mouse over it. They are undoubtedly links though, because clicking them will redirect me to the respective websites of the advertiser. Hiding the URLs of links to the user is extremely questionable security-wise (I shouldn't know where I'm going until I click the link?) and I would like to force my browser to show it no matter what the website would specify. Optimally, I would like to be able to do this without breaking any other integral parts of the browser/the site. I am using 45.0.1, the problem is reproducible (there are often banners on for example gamestar.de where this happens) and persists in safe mode. Is there a config switch I can set to fix this? Thanks for the help!

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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This is probably because a JavaScript onclick event is attached to that button. Firefox only shows the value of the 'href' attribute when you hover a link.

You can check that in the Inspector via the right-click context menu (Inspect Element). If there is an 'ev' button appended then this means that JavaScript code is executed when you click this element.

KeyserX
KeyserX Question owner
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That is indeed what it is, thanks. So is there a way to make these "sneaky" links visible to the user or to stop JavaScript from redirecting you off the original site?

Or would that only work by disabling it completely?

finitarry
finitarry
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You could block the ads with an ad blocker. That way, you would not even see those things.