Alt is not obsolete, but is meant to be use for images if they can not be displayed. The title attribute is meant for tooltips.

Works fine here with Firefox 4.

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<abbr title="test for ABBR">Test for ABBR</abbr>

Can you post a link?
If it doesn't work then it is possible that other elements are covering that part of the page.

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the add-ons is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Tools > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

• Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.

See:

• Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems

You are right about "alt".

I tried safe mode; same problem.

My test page has only one element ("abbr").

To see, please try the following page:

  http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_abbr_test .

It gives me same problem. Just to note, the title of "a" tag is displayed correctly at the bottom of the screen. However in IE8, both work fine.

I am using a fresh install of FF4 with all default settings.

Thanks for your help.

I traced the problem to a setting deep down in Mozilla. Here is the crux of it:

Type about:config in the address bar and scroll down the list of preferences until you find one called browser.chrome.toolbar_tips. Once you find it, double-click on it and the value will change from true to false or vice-versa. Mine was set to false for some reason. These settings are inherited by the upgrades. To revert them all back to defaults, the browse should be uninstalled and then re-installed.

The pref browser.chrome.toolbar_tips is the main pref for enabling or disabling all tooltips, in the browser interface (toolbars) and on web pages. If necessary then you can reset all prefs by deleting prefs.js and a possible user.js in the Firefox Profile Folder

Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_preferences