foxyproxy / firefox-extension

FoxyProxy for Firefox extension beginning with Firefox 57 (Quantum)

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Site not being proxied at startup

emily785 opened this issue · comments

Set firefox to display home page at startup
Set your home page to your favorite "what is my ip" page
Close Firefox
Start firefox
Site is not proxied, displaying your real ip

Is this documented somewhere? Working as intended? Not possible to fix?
Seems like a rather critical issue at least IMO.

If I happen to start firefox on a page I normally want proxied, I've just leaked my IP...

It’s a known issue. Last time I looked into it, the problem was due to the way Firefox loads add-ons and their configurations. They are not guaranteed to be loaded and ready before network connections are made. I imagine ad-blocking add-ons have the same problem unless Firefox has made changes since I looked into it.

It used to be the case that extensions were loaded first in browser start-up. There were occasions of long start-up times therefore browser engineers decided to load the browser first and then the extensions.

As soon as browser is starts-up:

  • it makes connections for its own use
  • Tries to load tabs if there are open tabs from previous session and browser is set to reopen them

At this time extensions are NOT loaded so they don't function. It is best to not set the browser to open previous tab on start-up if proxies are used.

Next, browser starts to load persistent listeners belonging to the extensions but not the extensions yet. At this time, network connections will be proxied but if they require user/pass by the extension, the extension is not loaded yet to provide them.

Next the extension is loaded, the extension gets the user/pass from the storage and the normal process starts.

The time it takes for the aforementioned depends on type of starts-up e.g. it takes longer on upgrades, the number of extensions that needs to be loaded by the browser, and computer specs.

Previously: #143