1135643 - ms-windows-store should not auto open in Firefox

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[admin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0
Build ID: 20150122214805

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a windows store URL


Actual results:

1. Windows store automatically opened and switched to metro mode, without my prompt or consent


Expected results:

1. The 'warn external handler' should have opened, asking me if I want to open it in the windows store.

As a user, I prefer control over my computer. This includes not jumping into the metro mode just because I opened a windows store URL (even if I opened it in a new tab, intending to check it later), context switching everything. 

I tried to look for how to disable this behavior in Options -> Content, but it's not listed under the protocol handlers, nor is it in mimeTypes.rdf (from what I can tell).

I had to go to about:config and edit "network.protocol-handler.warn-external.ms-windows-store" to true, from the default false. The default should false - a context-breaking, desktop-switching protocol should not automatically be followed. 

This behavior can cause quite an inconvenience for FF users if I spend $200 on interstitial ad traffic, and 200,000 users (if they're win8) wonder why Windows Store is opened and how they can get back to their website like Forbes/whatever. I am happy to do a 'proof of concept' of why this default is not a sane choice, if you're interested.