Firefox Community Forum

Firefox's PDF viewer incorrectly applies user-defined font settings intended for HTML pages, resulting in illegible PDFs and requiring time-consuming workarounds.

Key Points: 1. When "Allow pages to choose their own fonts" is disabled in Firefox settings, the built-in PDF viewer renders some PDFs with incorrect fonts, replacing characters with icons and gifs. 2. This setting should only affect HTML pages, not PDFs, as PDFs are designed to maintain the author's exact formatting. 3. Current workarounds (saving/opening PDFs locally or toggling the font settings) are inconvenient and disrupt workflow. (Open a settings tab, navigate to fonts, navigate to advanced, toggle the option, select okay, return to prior tab, reload, view without error, then repeat the process to restore preferred settings.) 4. Users who prefer custom fonts for HTML content are forced to choose between readable PDFs and their preferred web browsing experience.

Background: HTML is intended to decompose information exchange in such a way that the viewer has control of aspects such as fonts; while PDF is a format designed specifically to present exactly as the author intended. The difference is the primary reason an author would choose to use pdf vs html. The issues can be reproduced with B612 and other fonts, in Firefox 127.0.2 and many earlier versions, on github repositories pages that embed pdf files, and most other pdf files opened with the viewer.

Proposed Solution: Implement a separate font control setting for the PDF viewer, allowing users to maintain their custom font preferences for HTML content while correctly rendering PDFs with the author's intended fonts. Or, simply disallow the setting to apply to the PDF Viewer.

Impact: Resolving this issue will significantly improve user experience, maintain the integrity of PDF documents, and eliminate the need for disruptive workarounds, ultimately enhancing productivity for affected users.

TeamVIEWER icon showed up on laptop this morning - my regular Mac desktop screen missing, figured out it TV was appearing under Guest User. Then I made error of downloading installer thinking my son was wanting to help me clean up my lap top from afar because I am 80 and get very confused and had asked him for help because I don't understand the tech vocabulary. Anyway, I can't get rid of it. It had someone's PW (hidden) an ID and could be 'remote controlled'. I saw a yellow caution sign appear so I stopped trying to install. but now I get a TEAM VIEWER Package that won't delete or go away.

This is very scary to a senior because EVERYONE is warning us don't click on unknowns. No one has used my laptop. I live alone. It appeared by itself this morning. And it had a Safari icon but I use only Firefox.

Thank you.

I have set Firefox to not automatically restore the previous session on launch. That is, "Open previous windows and tabs" is unchecked in the Startupsettings.

Most of the time it does not do so, however the previous session will get erroneously auto-restored in the folowing circumstances.

Open a few tabs in a normal Firefox window. Fully quit Firefox (via, for example, pressing ctrl+shift+Q). Open a private window first. Open a normal window second.

What should happen is that the new normal window contains just a single new tab. What actually happens is that the tabs that were open in the previous session get auto-restored in this normal window.

To sum up, there is no auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a normal window first. There is auto-session restore if Firefox is launched with a private window first, and then a normal window is opened second.

Is this a known issue, and are there any known fixes to prevent the auto-session restore in the latter case also?

Firefox keeps going off for from 5 seconds to about 20 seconds. It happens several times a minute. The screen goes blank and I can’t click on anything. Really aggravating. I would appreciate any help. Thanks

Just like title says, there's no download panel when opening a youtube video in a new tab. If i open it in the same tab, it'll show the download panel. How can i fix this?

When trying to load a PFX certificate into the latest version of Firefox on a new Windows 11 computer, the certificate will load just fine but Firefox will not offer prompts for things such as mark the key as exportable or enable strong private key protection. Tried the certificates in chrome and they work just fine.

This causes strong private key protection to be enabled by default and Firefox prompts for the security certificate as it loads each stage of the login screen. You have to select the certificate at least six times before you can get to a screen where you can enter your password for the site, and then you constantly have to select the certificate for every function of the web site thereafter.

Any work around for this?

This is getting frustrating beyond belief. Buying things online is one the the basic activities anyone does using a browser these days, yet I am increasingly finding myself unable to do so.

It's a particular concern because, like many others, I am disabled and depend on the internet for the delivery of essential goods and services.

This problem for me began a few years ago with the Cashflows payment service that many retailers use. The card details entry page would never load up and consequently no payment could be attempted, nevermind passing through the security checks after this. Earlier this year or so, Firefox updated itself and seemingly fixed the problem.

Today, I again have problems with Firefox and Cashflows-enabled websites. I also have problems with VivaWallet-enabled sites now too, and one other that I presently forget the name of. Possibly also Apple's website, but I'm not too sure about this. Taking the browser right down to base settings with no extensions etc, a fresh clean install even, does nothing to resolve it.

The workaround seems to be use a Chrome-based browser instead, undermining the privacy and security advantages of Firefox, although this doesn't always work in all cases. I also find this less accessible as a disabled user, not that Firefox doesn't still have a long way to go towards accessibility - it certainly does, especially since it dispensed with the Nuance extension for Dragon.

Is Firefox intending to shoot itself in the proverbial foot? Because I don't think it will have much of a future if it can't at least get this bit right, for all the security and privacy advantages it cares to boast about.

It's an infuriating and distressing issue. As I encounter more payment issues, I begin to wonder how much more my world could close in on me. Imagine if all the other browsers started behaving this way too? It's a scary thought.

Please, Firefox, make this issue the priority it deserves to be. You can have all the security and privacy bells you like, but a browser that is otherwise dysfunctional is no good to anyone.

Generally the video source either YT or twitch should only play/resume when that tab is in focus. however since the latest update its being doing it even when firefox is not focused and I am working on something else.

My New Tab page has four rows of shortcut tiles, 8 to each row. Total= 32 tiles. I accidentally "dismissed" one tile and now the page has only 31 tiles. I can find no way to restore the setting for 32 tiles. I looked in the "about:config" file but cannot figure it out. Kindly help. Thank you.

When I try to access an http:// site, the link is upgraded to https:// regardless of this setting.

This broke after a recent update to the browser. I cannot specifically say which upgrade, but it worked a month ago, now it doesn't anymore.

It may be worth noting that this broke in Brave (based on Chromium) at the same time.