1392046 - <a> href with javascript behavior differs between modern browsers

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1931058

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, defect, P2)

Description

[Alice0775 White]

Attachment: a tag href value.html

<a> href with javascript behavior differs between modern browsers

* Firefox55.02(Nightly57.0a1), IE11:
    string, number, boolean and object of href may navigate to the value

* Edge40.15063.0.0, Chrome62.0.3175.3:
   string of href may navigate to the value.
   however, number, boolean and object of href do not navigate to the value


Reproducible: always

Steps To Reproduce:
1. Open attached html
2. Click links

Expected Results:
all browser should have same behavior

Comment 1

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

Anne, what's the expected behaviour here from the spec point of view? 
It seems to me this is with rather low priority as javascript: pseudo protocol is discouraged ... Did I miss something?

Comment 2

[Anne (:annevk)]

This is https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1896 I think. Bug 1326162 also seems related (this might even be a duplicate).

javascript: URLs are indeed discouraged, but they're also a source of interoperability issues due to all the subtle behavioral differences. :/

Comment 4

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Mass bug change to replace various 'parity' whiteboard flags with the new canonical keywords. (See bug 1443764 comment 13.)

Comment 5

[Pierre Ossman]

This is causing problems in the wild as this page of a major parking company in Sweden now no longer works in Firefox:

https://service.apcoa.se/Account/Login/

Clicking "Logga in med APCOA konto" works in Chrome, but not in Firefox.

The vendor is entirely unsympathetic and just replies to bug reports with "Use Chrome".

Comment 6

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

The webcompat team will attempt outreach for APCOA (dennis), but the issue still exists.
It doesn't seem to have been discussed further on whatwg. (last comment 2018)
https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/1896

Comment 7

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

I re-pinged them, but I'm not too hopeful about them changing their site.

Comment 8

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

Bumping to webcompat-priority to P2 based on a second real-world breakage.

Comment 9

[Derek]

If we have multiple confirmed reproductions such as mine at 131350 why is this marked as unconfirmed and unfixed after 7 years?

Comment 10

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

(In reply to Derek from comment #9)

why is this marked as unconfirmed and unfixed after 7 years?

Because nobody has built a fix yet.

Comment 11

[Derek]

A seven year old compat bug with reliable reproduction should have been fixed long ago.

Comment 12

[Raul Bucata]

Verified this issue and still reproduce on Firefox Nightly for GitHub issue. Also, I get different results for test case, as in Firefox all the links open the corresponding variables, but Chrome and Edge open just the string link, which shows a number (1).

Tested with:

Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 128.0a1 (2024-05-29) (64-bit)
Operating System: Windows 10 PRO x64

Comment 13

[Kagami Rosylight [:saschanaz] (they/them)]

Per comment #12 and my own confirmation too.

Comment 14

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

Assigning to :zcorpan for now, who will be helping us to figure out the right behavior and the next step.