649993 - Firefox 4 regression with Flash-blocking add-ons

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Rod Spade]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

On some pages on finance.yahoo.com, embedded flash video begins playing automatically, even if Flashblock or Stop Autoplay is installed.  This did not happen in Firefox 3.6.

When I experimented with this problem, sometimes the Flash was blocked correctly - but if I held Shift and hit Reload to clear the cache, the video always started to play.

I recently experienced the issue on these pages:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/oil-producers-not-crude-oil-where-investing-calamos-20110414-052332-167.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/not-only-peter-lynch-wrong-stocks-general-bad-20110413-050251-817.html

It appears that the embedded player is typically one of these:
http://d.yimg.com/nl/techticker/breakout/player.swf
http://d.yimg.com/nl/techticker/site/player.swf


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Install either Flashblock or Stop Autoplay.
2.  Go to affected web page.
3.  If embedded flash video does not start automatically, hit Shift-Reload.
Actual Results:  
Video plays.

Expected Results:  
Embedded Flash should be blocked by add-on.

Comment 1

[Alfredos-Panagiotis Damkalis [:fredy]]

I am not sure if it is firefox's or addon's bug but I confirm that with flashblock at windows, firefox 4 after a simple reload plays the flash at the above pages without block it first.

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Please report issues with extensions to the extension author.
(There is no native blocking of flash in Firefox)

Comment 3

[Rod Spade]

I will report this to the extensions' authors.  However, since the problem occurs with 2 different extensions, both of which worked fine in Firefox 3.6, it may be related to an issue with Firefox 4 rather than the add-ons.