Can't leave a website?
The absolute weirdest problem. If I'm on the Brita website (brita.com) and type in another url to navigate away, I press enter, and it just refreshes the same page I was on. This happens across the brita.com domain, regardless of what url I type in, even if I type the full url (including https://www.), and if I click a search or url suggestion in the dropdown, even in a private window, anything. This has never happened to me with any other website.
Obviously I can just close the tab and open another, but this is strange enough I figured I'd see if anyone could figure it out (or at least replicate my experience). I would appreciate any insights!
Chosen solution
Hi jasher,
I actually reported the site as one of those "deceptive sites" and then as something else but cant remember what. Both reports were made via FireFox's browser features. But i didnt consider this as a bug in FireFox.
After some research I believe the tactic the site is using is called "mousetrapping" and the federal agencies are cracking down on these.
Also some people may not realize this, but Googles system places highly visited websites at the top of their search results. So this particular site was cleaverly coded in order to create lots of visits.
I think i added like 50 visits in 1 hour just trying all kinds of things to figure it out. But when i checked out the site with Edge, the site didnt hijack the browser and it was able to over ride the shenanigans.
Interestingly, when i blocked something of that site via FireFox, i then got a big blank page with an error message. I dont recall if it was cookies or scripts i blocked while figuring out the shenanigans. I wondered if it was java script at play. But i am no longer into html-ing.
In any case, i was trapped in that useless error page, like a mouse.
- -)
All Replies (7)
hello panda,
that is truly a weird thing !
i sent a report to mozilla so they can look into it.
Hi dbben, do you mean you filed a bug in Bugzilla? Can you share the link?
Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link}
A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?
Chosen Solution
Hi jasher,
I actually reported the site as one of those "deceptive sites" and then as something else but cant remember what. Both reports were made via FireFox's browser features. But i didnt consider this as a bug in FireFox.
After some research I believe the tactic the site is using is called "mousetrapping" and the federal agencies are cracking down on these.
Also some people may not realize this, but Googles system places highly visited websites at the top of their search results. So this particular site was cleaverly coded in order to create lots of visits.
I think i added like 50 visits in 1 hour just trying all kinds of things to figure it out. But when i checked out the site with Edge, the site didnt hijack the browser and it was able to over ride the shenanigans.
Interestingly, when i blocked something of that site via FireFox, i then got a big blank page with an error message. I dont recall if it was cookies or scripts i blocked while figuring out the shenanigans. I wondered if it was java script at play. But i am no longer into html-ing.
In any case, i was trapped in that useless error page, like a mouse.
- -)
Modified by ·´¯`·...¸>-)))º> ~dbben
If it's like the fake FBI/Interpol browser lock page, A way out of a trap page is to (force it if needed) Close Firefox. Wait about 20 seconds for Firefox to finish closing. Right-click on the Firefox icon and select Open New Window. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sometimes this works. If it opens, close it by Menu > File > Exit. This will flush out that web page from the Session Store.
thanks fred.
closing the tab is the convenient solution in FF.
but clearly, FF should implement the same strategy as Edge to keep the tabs from being hijacked
Thanks all. I looked into bugzilla but it's too opaque for me to understand what's going on there without a bunch of time I don't want to spend. I'll consider this "closed" (thanks for your insights!) but if someone wants to file a bugzilla report, that seems like it may be worthwhile since this is a problem in Firefox that doesn't exist in other browsers.
Cheers and thanks again! -Emily