662206 - Don't search when the typed string starts with a known protocol (but is an invalid URL)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

Suppose cPanel generated the password "passw#rd" for me.

1. Type into the address bar:
      ftp://user:passw#rd@host/

Result:
      Firefox does a Google search for "ftp://user:passw#rd@host/". Sending my FTP password to a search engine isn't a nice thing to do.

Expected:
      Tell me "Invalid URL" (or escape the "#" for me?). It should be clear from the "ftp:" part that I don't intend to search, and the search is unlikely to be useful.

Background:
      Some password generators create passwords with "#", not expecting that users will try to create URLs containing the password. It's less obvious that "#" needs to be escaped than "/" (see bug 454241). This problem was pointed out by avih.

Comment 2

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

We actually want to go the other direction for the most part - searching is by far the more common desire. Entering passwords in the URL bar is rather rare (particularly passwords with "special" characters), so the complication of trying to fix this isn't worth the cost.