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Seeing "?" symbols in a webpage.

  • 4 replies
  • 60 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

adidasfreak
adidasfreak
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Seeing "�" symbols all over a webpage. It loads correctly with other browsers like Google Chrome.

"http://tnp.sg/news/" is an example of a website that Firefox tries to load with symbols all over the place (and no content loading).

Many other webpages also appear like this. Sometimes these symbols come up on certain webpages like Facebook but do not affect the page loading.

Seeing "�" symbols all over a webpage. It loads correctly with other browsers like Google Chrome. "http://tnp.sg/news/" is an example of a website that Firefox tries to load with symbols all over the place (and no content loading). Many other webpages also appear like this. Sometimes these symbols come up on certain webpages like Facebook but do not affect the page loading.

Chosen solution

If a server doesn't send an encoding then Firefox uses the default encoding as set in "Tools > Options > Content" (Western ISO-8859-1).

A possibility in such cases is to switch to "View > Character Encoding > Auto-Detect > Universal" to see if that makes Firefox switch to the correct encoding.

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (4)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

If a server doesn't send an encoding then Firefox uses the default encoding as set in "Tools > Options > Content" (Western ISO-8859-1).

A possibility in such cases is to switch to "View > Character Encoding > Auto-Detect > Universal" to see if that makes Firefox switch to the correct encoding.

adidasfreak
adidasfreak Question owner
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Thank you so much cor-el for your swift reply! It works fine now.

PMillward
PMillward
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I can use "View > Character Encoding > Western (ISO-8859-1)", but only the current open page is affected. Under the "Tools" menu, there doesn't seem to be an item for "Options". Is there some way to keep Western (ISO-8859-1) as the default character encoding? That seems to be the most useful.

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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You set the default encoding via Tools > Options > Content : Fonts & Colors: Advanced > Default Character Encoding

See also Content Preferences: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/4066