Underline links option missing (or removed?) in Firefox 119
Categories
(Core :: Layout, defect)
Tracking
()
People
(Reporter: wedge009, Unassigned)
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0
Steps to reproduce:
Before Firefox (desktop) 119, I could always (probably since at least version 1) disable the default underlining of anchors/links by going to Manage Colours (or similar dialogue) and unticking the 'Underline links' option.
There seems to be an internal variable that still carries over to Firefox 119 - although apparently has no effect any more - when checking the about:config page, the variable browser.underline_anchors is set to false.
Actual results:
Any basic web page that doesn't remove default underlining with its own CSS or other styling now - as of Firefox 119 - has links underlined by default.
To me, this creates visual noise and detracts from actual content.
Expected results:
Links should not be underlined, as was the case before Firefox 119.
I am not sure if the removal of this option was deliberate - I've tried to look for information on this but have found nothing (it's only a cosmetic issue, after all, and doesn't block functionality).
|
||
Comment 1•3 years ago
|
||
The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Widget: Gtk' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.
I don't understand the reasoning for #1853323. Sure, a page may choose to override it, but it's the default rendering that I'm concerned about. A user should still have the choice to disable it by default for where a web page doesn't have its own styling.
|
||
Updated•3 years ago
|
|
||
Comment 5•3 years ago
|
||
Emilio, WDYT here? I understand the new Always Underline Links from bug 1664278 is better than the old pref for users who want to always have underlines. But the reporter here wants link underlines to be turned off by default (so they'd only appear if the page explicitly calls for them). AFAICS there's no longer a way to do that, short of a userContent.css customization or something.
Should we reintroduce some way to customize the default, like we used to have? Do we have any insight (telemetry?) into how many users had turned underlines off by default?
|
||
Comment 6•3 years ago
|
||
Yeah, so "Underline links" was always confusing because it never overrode the website, it only tweaked the default, so it was never reliable. Having UI for something like that in the settings page is rather confusing.
Any basic web page that doesn't remove default underlining with its own CSS or other styling now - as of Firefox 119 - has links underlined by default.
That's what the HTML spec calls for fwiw.
Forcefully having underlines is an accessibility need for some users, but not defaulting to them is a cosmetic issue that can be addressed with one line of user css. In any case, I think it's fine to add a pref to do this if we want to, but given:
- It's rather trivial using user css (
:any-link { text-underline: none }), or with an extension (this is an example for a similar thing, the skip-ink behavior of links). - It's rather hard to explain to most users when it works and when it doesn't.
I'd tend not to do this unless this is a very common request that was somehow overlooked.
Actually before submitting this I just uploaded an extension here should show up once reviewed etc, but here is the source.
Description
•