1167777 - When you click on a file link, the "Save File"/"Ok" button appears initially gray, and becomes active only after a 2 sec delay

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[Kostas]

On a clean Firefox 38.0.1 x86 stable profile
click on this link:
https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/38.0.1/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%2038.0.1.exe
and on these links:
https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/38.0.1/mac/en-US/Firefox%2038.0.1.dmg
https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/38.0.1/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-38.0.1.tar.bz2
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/firefox-41.0a1.en-US.win64.zip

In all cases 
the "Save File" button (link 1)
or the "Ok" button (links 2,3,4)
on the window appear initially gray, and become active only after a 2 sec delay. 
(this also occurs on all -x64- versions 39beta, 40dev, 41 Nightly)

They should be active immediately.

Comment 1

[Léon McGregor]

I believe this is an intentional security measure to ensure users read and confirm what they are downloading. You should be able to disable it, but this is not a bug.

Comment 2

[Kostas]

If that's the case, I believe that this delay is unnecessary, because Firefox offers malware protection:
if a download is a malware then the download is blocked.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-malware-protection-work#w_what-happens-when-a-page-or-file-is-blocked

Comment 3

[Léon McGregor]

The thing is while malware protection does a good job it can never hope to get 100% of the bad ones. For most users this will provide some extra help in rooting those out, by letting users double-check what they're downloading.

Comment 4

[Kostas]

For attempts to install an add-on the delay should remain.
http://www.squarefree.com/2004/07/01/race-conditions-in-security-dialogs/
But, when trying to download any other file, I think that this delay is not needed.


Firefox doesn't allow the user to choose to run/open-when-done an executable file immediately after it's downloaded any more(in contrast to IE and Chrome). 
You can only choose to save it or cancel the download.

And for all other filetypes (eg. .ZIP, .DOC), you can either choose Save or Open/always-open with one of the installed programs
via the "What Firefox should do with the file" dialog.
(PDFs are opened straight in the build-in PDF reader without having to download them)

And even if you start a suspicious download, you can always pause/cancel it at any time (ie. before it completes).

This delay just gets in the way.

Comment 5

[Léon McGregor]

I'm not part of the firefox team, so I don't have a say in whether or not this should be removed.

You can disable this if you really want to [via the security.dialog_enable_delay option], and this might be a relevant discussion as to why the default is so high: bug 449554 & bug 245737

However, this in and of itself is a feature, not a bug.

Comment 6

[Kostas]

Thanks for the tip and the links.
This security measure was added in Firefox 2, 7 years ago (!).
I can't find a reason justifying keeping this delay in every download attempt
(only add-on download attempts should have that delay).
It just makes the user think that "Firefox is slow, because every download attempt starts with a delay, in contrast to the other browsers (Chrome, IE) where downloads start instantly".

Comment 7

[YF (Yang)]

see bug 561177, bug 916726, bug 416605.

Comment 8

[Oana Botisan, Desktop QA]

I managed to reproduce this issue using 60.2.2 esr - build 2, beta 63.0b11 and latest Nightly 64.0a1 on Windows 10 x64.

Comment 10

[mi2rivtj]

Attachment: "ok" button delay

Comment 12

[Vaidehi]

Hello, I am an outreachy applicant. Can I work on this bug?
Thanks.

Comment 13

[mi2rivtj]

@Kostas is right. This is a good security measure, but there should be a GUI option instead of just the "security.dialog_enable_delay" option in about:config. Also, this report fits more in the enhancement category in my opinion.

Comment 14

[Kostas]

With the new Download flow in Firefox 98.0 this issue report has become no longer valid. I'm closing this.