295319 - Firefox is really bad at detecting whether it is the default browser

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050524 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050524 Firefox/1.0.3

After uninstalling and re-installing firefox, the internet icon on my start menu
stopped working. Firefox still believed it was the default browser so I tried to
convince it otherwise.
I remove the filetype association for html and htm files. I removed the open
command on http and https protocols.
Firefox still believes that it is the default browser.


Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:

Actual Results:  
If firefox is not the default handler for htm, html, http, https at least then
it should know that it is not the default browser.

Alternativly provide a button in the options to set firefox as the default
browser regardless of whether firefox thinks it is or not.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Alternativly provide a button in the options to set firefox as the default
> browser regardless of whether firefox thinks it is or not.

There is one in the trunk builds (Deer Park Alpha 1)

Comment 2

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

As you can see from my useragent I am using one of the deer park alpha builds.
Where is this button? I see the "Check Now" button, but that just pops up a
window saying that firefox is already the default browser.

Comment 3

[José Jeria]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 255225 ***

Comment 4

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

I disagree that this is a duplicate. Yes the problem initially showed up by
uninstalling messing up the associations, but this issue occurs even if you are
not uninstalling and for some reason another application decides to steal some
of the file associations. This bug is about firefox not doing a thorough enough
check to see if it is the default browser.

Dave

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Actual Results:  
> If firefox is not the default handler for htm, html, http, https at least then
> it should know that it is not the default browser.

Is this the actual problem of the bug?  Filetype associations are *not* the same 
as default client status.  Altho both settings are usually set with the same 
action, they are orthogonal; and there are users who want one program as the 
default browser and some other program (e.g. an HTML editor) as the default for 
opening an HTML file.


> Alternativly provide a button in the options to set firefox as the default
> browser regardless of whether firefox thinks it is or not.

That *is* the Check Now button.  It *sets* FF as the default browser.
However, your problem seems to be that you *don't* want it to be the default 
browser.

In order for another client to become the default browser, that client must set 
itself as the default browser.  This can alternately be handled via Set Program 
Access and Defaults (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs).

This is how Windows has defined the default client scheme, it's not something 
that Firefox can change.