1104028 - URL bar forces Google search instead of actually going to website.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Fuck you]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:33.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/33.0
Build ID: 20141106120505

Steps to reproduce:

First of all, **** you for making me register with your website to report a **** bug. Seriously. **** you. If I get one piece of spam from you, this is going on a Twitter account with 50,000 followers.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start typing the URL of a website you frequently visit in the URL bar of the latest Firefox. For example, If you frequently visit "reddit.com", start typing "redd" and "reddit.com" will show up for a split second. Now, if I press "enter" while "reddit.com" is showing up in the URL bar, I expect this browser to take me to reddit.com. However, as soon as you press "enter", Firefox submits a Google search for "redd" instead of taking you to reddit.com.

This seems to qualify for your client reward as it is a serious security threat. Firefox forces the user to submit a Google search query before actually going to the website. This is huge. It means Firefox submits thousands, if not millions of unwarranted search results to Google every day.

This may not seem like a big problem to an every day user, but please make this known to the top people at Firefox.

This is a MAJOR PROBLEM. This is forcing Google to show irrelevant search results, record the browsing habits of millions of users, and is quite frankly **** me the **** off every time it happens.

I would appreciate a monetary reward. Please let me know how I can receive this reward.


Actual results:

Firefox forced an unwarranted Google search for "redd", exposing my browsing habits to Google.


Expected results:

Firefox should have went straight to "reddit.com" instead of forcing a Google search for "redd".

Comment 1

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This sounds like a bug, but it is not a security issue that needs to remain private or has a reward.

Marco, do you know anything about this?

Comment 2

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

In Firefox 33 on Linux, when I type redd I see the suggestions for reddit.com in the drop down menu, but the url does not auto update to reddit.com. Pressing enter without selecting one of the drop down options does do a search on the default search provider.

On Nightly Firefox 36, I do see the url bar auto update. It isn't clear to me which bug made the change.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I cannot reproduce the problem, I'm assuming it may be due to some add-on in the profile conflicting with our code.
Please try Safe mode https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode or resetting your profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems

There's nothing actionable here atm.