787758 - Some Flash overlays (like ads) become transparent when click-to-play is enabled

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect, P2)

Description

[George R. Goffe]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0
Build ID: 20120831030612

Steps to reproduce:

On this URL, "http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/chuck-norris-dire-warning-for-america/", cut/paste seems to be broken.


Actual results:

Attempted to select text with left button. This failed.


Expected results:

Select with left button should highlight text which can be subsequently pasted elsewhere.

The right button brings up a popup which has "copy" at the top instead of the usual "back" entry... if this helps.

Comment 1

[Loic]

Attachment: screenshot

It's a side-effect of click-to-play. The website displays a Flash ad coded as overlay which moves when the user is scrolling the page.
So if click-to-play is enabled, the ad becomes transparent, only the black close button is visible.
Of course, when you're trying to highlight the text, the cursor can't select the text behind the transparent ad.

See my screenshot to view the issue.

Comment 2

[Loic]

Oops, in my screenshot, click-to-play is disabled in the 1st pic, then enabled in the 2nd pic. ;)

Comment 3

[alex_mayorga]

I can reproduce comment 1 on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:19.0) Gecko/19.0 Firefox/19.0 ID:20121011030552 and the bug has even been assigned so confirming.

Workaround:
Adblock Plus[1] + Fanboy's Adblock List[2]

1| http://adblockplus.org
2| http://fanboy.co.nz

Comment 4

[Dana Keeler (she/her) (use needinfo) [:keeler] (on leave)]

This is an evangelism bug. It looks like there's a hidden flash object (called VALIS_cookie or something) such that the rest of the ad doesn't load if that object isn't present/activated. This leaves the transparent overlay (which is just a div with a large z-index) interfering with the rest of the page.