Mixed content blocking in Firefox 48 is preventing me from filling in a form
I was trying to fill in a form to communicate with a supermarket. All the fields that were to be filled from pull-down menus disappeared, including State (the only one marked as required). When I hit Submit anyway, a little label appeared at the top of the screen, right under the address bar, saying "Please select an item from the list". I am guessing it was really for the state list, but don't know why it was there.
I looked up information about mixed content, including one of these pages that alleged falsely that I would see a "Disable protection for now" button. There is no such button in Firefox 48. There is a More Information bar that opens a window with more information than I needed or wanted at this point, and as far as I could find nothing to the purpose. I mean, come on, all I want to do is use a pull-down menu to tell them my state, and I can't?! You're so busy protecting me you make an ordinary commercial website unusable? I am not happy!
Chosen solution
I use NoScript, but as noted I had tried allowing the various scripts, including Coremetrics, and it made no difference. I wasn't in Firefox private browsing. The only icons are the information circle and the padlock, gray, with a yellow warning triangle on top. The More Information bar at the bottom leads to information which tells me, among other things, that the connection is only partially encrypted. In the media section of Page Info, I find that images are theoretically not blocked, i.e. the box for blocking images is not checked. This, I must admit, makes it look as if it might not be Firefox causing this problem.
As noted previously, disabling the Kaspersky add-on did not appear to make a difference, so I thought that was not the problem. In desperation, I just tried leaving it on but temporarily turning off the one setting on blocking. Perversely, that works. So, for your reference, disabling that add-on does not prevent blocking, but using it selectively does. This does not make much sense but is a fact. Problem solved. Thanks for your help.
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Hi Kate, why do you think that mixed content blocking was causing the problem?
Can you give a link to the page (assuming volunteers would not need to create an account on the site first)?
Why? 1) The message at the icon is that parts of the page, such as images, are not secure. 2) I know of nothing else that would block all the pull-down lists (title, state*, month, day, year, time). I explicitly disabled the Kaspersky add-on to see if that would make a difference, and it did not. I worked through my script blocker list one permission at a time till the whole page was allowed, and that did not help either. What else is left but Firefox?
In any case, I can't test the hypothesis that Firefox blocking is causing the problem because the instructions at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/mixed-content-blocking-firefox?redirectlocale=en-US&as=u&redirectslug=how-does-content-isnt-secure-affect-my-safety&utm_source=inproduct on how to disable protection temporarily bear no relation to what this version of Firefox actually does.
If you want to try the page, it's https://giantfood.com/contact/contact-information/
Modified
Thank you for the address. When there are images loaded via HTTP on an HTTPS page, Firefox loads them and shows that warning triangle on the lock icon, it doesn't actually block them.
For me, the title and States drop-downs are completely missing if I block the script from Coremetrics. If I allow the script from Coremetrics, then it appears and seems to work fine.
Coremetrics sounds like a tracking site. Could any of these explain the problem:
- Firefox's Tracking Protection feature? This is turned on automatically in private windows, and a shield icon would appear next to the lock icon. This article has more information on how to make an exception to tracking protection: What happened to Tracking Protection?.
- An add-on which blocks tracking sites such as Disconnect, Ghostery, or perhaps Privacy Badger? Each of these should give you the option to make an exception.
- Another add-on which blocks external scripts, such as NoScript or uMatrix?
Modified
Chosen Solution
I use NoScript, but as noted I had tried allowing the various scripts, including Coremetrics, and it made no difference. I wasn't in Firefox private browsing. The only icons are the information circle and the padlock, gray, with a yellow warning triangle on top. The More Information bar at the bottom leads to information which tells me, among other things, that the connection is only partially encrypted. In the media section of Page Info, I find that images are theoretically not blocked, i.e. the box for blocking images is not checked. This, I must admit, makes it look as if it might not be Firefox causing this problem.
As noted previously, disabling the Kaspersky add-on did not appear to make a difference, so I thought that was not the problem. In desperation, I just tried leaving it on but temporarily turning off the one setting on blocking. Perversely, that works. So, for your reference, disabling that add-on does not prevent blocking, but using it selectively does. This does not make much sense but is a fact. Problem solved. Thanks for your help.
Hi Kate8, thank you for the update. For the benefit of other Kaspersky users, could you mention which setting you turned off, and where (for example, using the Options button for the Kaspersky Protection extension inside Firefox, or some settings in the Kaspersky software itself).
The Kaspersky Protection icon is at the far right end of my toolbar. Under Private Browsing it has several options including Allow data collection and Allow data collection on this website. I turned on the more restrictive long enough to fill out the form, and after submitting that went back and turned it off with Block data collection. There was information mentioning one collection of data, presumably just from the store I was communicating with, which was reassuring.
Thanks! So hard to stay on top of all these different add-ons' features.