281806 - firefox does not associate .htm and .html to firefox when http protocol is already associated (when using set as default browser)

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Gabriel Chadwick]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0

When .htm files are associated with an other browser and .html with firefox,
firefox does not detect it. Even if go in the settings and verify it manually it
still does not detect it. So .htm files do not open with firefox.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Set .htm to open with internet explorer.

Actual Results:  
firefox does not detect it and does set himself to open .htm so .htm are openned
by ie.

Expected Results:  
Detect it and set itself as default. It should open .htm files.

Comment 1

[Bamm Gabriana]

I'm confirming this. I edited my registry so that .htm is associated with
"htmlfile" and .html with "FirefoxHTML", and FF does not complain that it is not
the default browser even when using a manual check through the UI. Reversing
this (i.e., .htm -> FirefoxHTML and .html -> htmlfile) does cause FF to
complain. OTOH, MSIE detects it is not the default browser if either .htm or
.html is not associated with it. Firefox's definition of "default browser"
should at the minimum check for three things: .html, .htm and the http protocol.

Comment 2

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

There is a simple workaround -> minor.

This does appear to be by design, since we don't necessarily need/want to steal
the html association.  In fact, you can just have the web protocols and nothing
local and we won't bat an eyelash.

Whether we change this is probably an argument in waiting.

Comment 3

[Gabriel Chadwick]

(In reply to comment #2)

By design ? There is some pieces of software out in the wild that only change
one of the two to internet explorer. So imagine unexperienced users what
surprise and missunderstanding they will face. Even more, when you check firefox
to be default browser you expect it to handle every web page, maybe not everyone
but unexperienced user do ! Ad to this, that it does not make using firefox easy
and simple.

> There is a simple workaround -> minor.
> 
> This does appear to be by design, since we don't necessarily need/want to steal
> the html association.  In fact, you can just have the web protocols and nothing
> local and we won't bat an eyelash.
> 
> Whether we change this is probably an argument in waiting.

Comment 4

[Gabriel Chadwick]

The bug still exist in 1.0.1

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.5)
Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0
> 
> When .htm files are associated with an other browser and .html with firefox,
> firefox does not detect it. Even if go in the settings and verify it manually it
> still does not detect it. So .htm files do not open with firefox.
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1.Set .htm to open with internet explorer.
> 
> Actual Results:  
> firefox does not detect it and does set himself to open .htm so .htm are openned
> by ie.
> 
> Expected Results:  
> Detect it and set itself as default. It should open .htm files.

Comment 5

[Gabriel Chadwick]

I think that the file associations for .html and .htm should be included in the
set of elements that are checked to determine whether or not Firefox is the
default browser. I also think that it should be a required element for the
browser to function.

Comment 6

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Attachment: Patch

Require .htm, .html to be registered to Firefox for the browser to consider
itself the default.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

What if someone wants their editor to own local files, and their browser to own
HTTP?  That's a pretty common case, and not something I feel we want to break.

Reasons instead of opinions are what can convince people.  If the old default
browser didn't own .htm why should we take it?  Same with if an editor steals
the association afterwards.  If that's what the user wants, why should Firefox
make that difficult/annoying?

Comment 8

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

Mike, a program stealing it when installed for something else, (lets use M$ word
as an example, I cannot recall if it associates html with itself or not, but it
does handle them), I know of few people who want html files to open in Word, and
by most installations of Word, it is for a "Word Processor". I am sure some
other programs may claim html when html/htm are not the primary use-cases of the
program.

However to play my own devil's advocate, I do see your point, we could provide
an "Advanced" UI (perhaps) to say "Reclaim htm/html files when Firefox checks if
it is the default browser" or some such syntax (will require more code, but
makes sense to me, to suit both cases of "Firefox should not annoy users".)

Comment 9

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Adding a pref because you can't satisfy everyone is an incredibly huge cop-out.
 We don't do that here 95% of the time.

Comment 10

[Gabriel Chadwick]

In any exeption case all you have to do is to stop firefox checking if it is
default. But i think that the default setting should be to look for htm and
html. You cant have a browser, as a default, look for only one of them it does
not make sense. Most of the users I think will exepect that.

(In reply to comment #7)
> What if someone wants their editor to own local files, and their browser to own
> HTTP?  That's a pretty common case, and not something I feel we want to break.
> 
> Reasons instead of opinions are what can convince people.  If the old default
> browser didn't own .htm why should we take it?  Same with if an editor steals
> the association afterwards.  If that's what the user wants, why should Firefox
> make that difficult/annoying?

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Actually, currently neither is required.  One or the other may or may not be
set, and we won't bat an eye.

Having to turn off a check just because you have a valid but not standard config
isn't the best idea.  Note that this issue only occurs if an app takes the
association afterwards.  I don't think its good practice to rabidly try to take
back file associations over what is usually the user's wishes.

Comment 12

[Gabriel Chadwick]

I have something to ad.

I am  thinking about normal users that want all web pages to be open by there
default browser. People who dont know how to mess with files associations how
can the get it back if firefox cant... Unchecking an option is not a big problem
and it will touch a minority. Messing in the files association preferences is
though for many users.

Firefox should take back by default htm and html.

Comment 13

[Stuart Proffitt]

I believe this bug is what I am experiencing, if not I apologize. on a Windows
XP box, using Novell's GroupWise, when you click on a html link in an email, it
is supposed to open up in the default browser, which I have set to be FF.
However what happens is that IE opens up. And in researching this I found an
article from Novell (http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/11537.html) that
shows that FF is not setting all of the registry keys associated w/ being the
default browser. Here is what they said:

The following are the keys that weren't being set by Firefox, and that were
being used by GroupWise to call a browser when an email link is clicked.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILL~1\\FIREFOX.EXE,1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command]
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILL~1\\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\ddeexec\Application]
@="firefox"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\opennew\command]
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILL~1\\FIREFOX.EXE -url \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\opennew\ddeexec\Application]
@="firefox"

Havng to manually edit the registry to have FF really become the default browser
seems like a bug to me, and so I would like to add my support to this being
resolved in the next release of FF.

Comment 14

[Gabriel Chadwick]

Asking for blocking because i think(or hope) this is simple to fix and important
enough to be included in 1.1 . This can be a way to lose unexperienced users.

Comment 15

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

I tested this with IE.  They don't enforce even as much as we do.  I actually
changed the http/https associations, in addition to htm/html, and it still
didn't prompt.  That being said, I'm glad we enforce what we enforce, and no
further.

Under XP (our target Windows platform, and the base OS for pretty much every
consumer PC sold in the last three years or more), users can easily fix the
association.  Right-click, Open With, Choose Program, check "Always use this
program".  This is the same as any other file type that gets the wrong
association, and other apps (i.e. Office, Winamp, etc) don't nag if not all file
types they can handle aren't associated, even if some are.

Aside: reporter, the target milestone is not something you set for others. 
Please don't touch fields just because you can, find out who should be setting them.

Marking this WONTFIX, the annoyance to users who actually want this setup
outweighs the possible confusion of a user who's had his file associations
stolen.  The flipside is that a user who doesn't get file associations, but
wants local HTML files to open in whatever editor, they won't understand WHY
Firefox keeps brekaing their editor.