418988 - Add UI to prevent Firefox from running virus scan

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 393792

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Roman R.]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008022104 Minefield/3.0b4pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008022104 Minefield/3.0b4pre

I don't want Firefox to waste my time by scanning files for viruses after it downloads them. I will do that when I decide to. Please add an option in the preferences dialog or the download window to turn on/off this feature.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Sorry, but there's a preference for it.  There is no UI planned, nor do I really want it there.  WONTFIX

Comment 2

[Roman R.]

The xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx option is for Mozilla programmers, geeks, and software, not normal users. Since there's no UI planned for this, somebody just needs to plan one. What's the big deal? This wouldn't be the first UI for which a plan has been created. You may not want it there, but other users do. Somebody has added this time wasting feature to Firefox, and there's got to be an *easy* way to turn it off.

Comment 3

[Roman R.]

See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=614372 for messages from users who don't want this feature (forced scanning, that is).

Comment 4

[Jo Hermans]

It was decided before in bug 393792 NOT to provide a UI for this. See also bug 412204 and bug 409815.

Note: you can't disable it in IE7 either

Comment 5

[Roman R.]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Note: you can't disable it in IE7 either

I consider this a very poor argument for not allowing the user the freedom to choose. If Firefox becomes like xyz software, what's the reason to use Firefox?

Comment 6

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

verified dupe

Comment 7

[Miles Robinson]

It should be easier than it currently is to disable virus scanning of newly completed downloads. Firefox 3 is a great browser and I kept using it despite this perceived slowness of downloads, which I suspected was caused by the same despicable behaviour IE7 employs. It's highly unnecessary to force users to have to go into about:config to change something that could easily be represented by a checkbox in Tools -> Options. We're not running low on space there for options, it's not like we're approaching KDE-esque levels of configuration dialogs. You might not be annoyed by waiting 5-15 seconds for your browser window to respond when a download is finishing, but there are plenty of people who multitask and demand responsiveness from their apps.

Not only that but you have to realize this impacts other programs too. Gaming, voice/video, whatever takes CPU cycles. I am almost always watching Adultswim.com video or some other streaming video through Firefox on my second monitor, with my web browsing on the first, and the download manager interrupting my videos is not appreciated. People like me who want any easy configuration dialog just want a quicker and more accessible way to advise people on how to avoid this issue. Is that so much to ask?

P.S. - Have we come this far with the most popular alternative browser in a very long time, only to tell people they should be happy with how things are because they're the same way with Internet Explorer? Eww, I say. Internet Explorer behaviour is a baseline at best, not something to aspire to.