Blocking automatic print dialogs

by Volker Weber

Most of the times, print versions of web pages are much better to read. No attention-grabbing ads, just clean text on a neutral background.

These pages often come with one downside. Web designers put some Javascript into the page to open the print dialog, which you then have to close if you want to read the page.

In Firefox it is pretty easy to block this behavior. Just create user.js in your profile directory and enter this:

// block print popups from Javascript
user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.print", "noAccess");

No more print popups.

Comments

Great tip, but as a novice, how do I create the user:js in the profile directory? Thanks

skip brandon, 2006-10-30

Instructions

Volker Weber, 2006-10-30

For those who don't want to search the profile directory:


Type "about:config" as URL an hit return.
Right-click in the config page and select "New > String" from the context menu.
Fill in "capability.policy.default.Window.print" as the first value and "noAccess" as the second value.
Be aware that this new setting produces a JavaScript error "Error: uncaught exception: Permission denied to get property Window.print" whenever you open a page uses the described JavaScript. Every possible script call after "window.print();" will fail!

Christian Heindel, 2006-10-30

List of user.js scripts...

Erhardt Nel, 2006-10-30

Thanks, Erhardt.

I think we are better off making this setting more specific:

// block print popups from Javascript
user_pref("capability.policy.printsites.sites", "http://www.spiegel.de");
user_pref("capability.policy.printsites.Window.print", "noAccess");

For more than one site, just put more URLs into the string.

Volker Weber, 2006-10-30

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