Any text dropped onto web page in Firefox appears in address bar and is parsed as URL or sent to search. Is there any config setting I can use to prevent this?
If I drag and drop a random text string anywhere into a Firefox web page, it appears in the address bar. It will be parsed as a URL and Firefox will try to go to that URL, or it will be sent to my default search engine. This is a problem for me since I use a password safe for all web page usernames and passwords. If I am working on a small screen and I try and drop a password into a small web-form box but miss by a few pixels, then my nicely crafted password is immediately displayed in plain text in the Firefox address bar and sent to Google. Not a desirable behavior just because I fumble-fingered a drag-and-drop. I tried this in safe mode as well with same results. I set: keyword.enabled=false and browser.fixup.alternate.enabled=false. I also tried a few other setting changes but the best I could achieve was to keep from sending my password to Google. Does anyone know if there is a config setting I can use to disable the drag-and-drop feature from working unless the text is inside a form field? Or maybe to disable it completely? Would love some guidance. Thanks.
All Replies (4)
Do not drag anything to anywhere into a Firefox web page. You must drop it into the text box you want it in.
You could try using a Greasemonkey user script to ignore the drop event if it occurs outside of the desired editing areas. The following is a first draft that I have not tested extensively. If you decide to try it, let me know what you think and if it needs tweaks for the sites you often use.
(1) You need the Greasemonkey extension in order to apply the script to pages: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
(2) The script itself is here: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/14325-dropstop
It is safer to use the clipboard with Copy/Paste for entering a password and not rely on dragging. Then you also can ensure that the field is cleared and you aren't appending to any already present data.
Thanks for the input everyone. Sorry FredMcD if I wasn't clear that the problem is only happening when I accidentally drop some text outside the correct form-entry field. Using a Windows box in a water-tight enclosure with small weatherproof touch screen on the outside and my fat fingers have trouble hitting everything properly.
jscher2000, I didn't know anything about Greasemonkey but I like the idea. Off to a job in the morning for a week but I will definitely play with your script when I get back. Thanks.
And yes, for the moment I think cor-el is right that I should abandon drag-and-drop altogether when working on a small display.
Just is a bit discouraging that Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Edge all prevent this problem. Only Firefox, my favorite browser, shows this undesirable behavior.