Bug 507358

Summary:	Firefox autobuffers video elements by default, wastes users' precious bandwidth
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Richard Schwarting <aquarichy>
Component:	firefox	Assignee:	Martin Stransky <stransky>
Status:	CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	11	CC:	gecko-bugs-nobody, mcepl, walters
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2009-07-07 10:59:37 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Richard Schwarting 2009-06-22 13:51:24 UTC

Description of problem:

Visiting Mirco Müller's blog ( http://macslow.net/ ), I managed to waste a few dozen MB of bandwidth because Firefox automatically downloaded the <video> elements. 

While many people have nice, large pipes, others live in areas (like NZ) with relatively expensive plans that can be shared across multiple users (a family, or housemates), or going forward, may be using cellular modems or tethering, and this default behaviour will become very expensive for them as <video> tags become more popular.

I couldn't find a means of disabling this autobuffering in about:config, in the Preferences, or in the Add-ons search.  

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
3.5b4

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. visit http://macslow.net/
2. watch your bandwidth usage increase (i.e. using Net Applet or something)

  
Actual results:
* all the video elements are downloaded on the page, even ones from posts days old that I don't want to watch again!

Expected results:
* videos do not start downloading, buffering until I've direct them to do so.  Perhaps videos might buffer the first 150kB or something, to have a smooth start, but not the entire thing.  

Additional info:
* https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=507353 < I filed this separately about how the downloaded files aren't even being cached, so when a page reloads, it redownloads them.

Comment 1 Richard Schwarting 2009-06-22 14:33:16 UTC

Testing the official binary for Firefox 3.5rc2 remotely on a friend's PC, I see that it actually isn't autodownloading anymore.  Mirco also just recommended I use the latest RC since he experienced the same thing in previous ones:
http://macslow.net/?p=320#comment-176351

Sadly, the latest build from Mozilla is randomly crashing when I click links.

Sigh.

Comment 2 Richard Schwarting 2009-06-24 23:49:44 UTC

Chris Blizzard notes that they changed the behaviour, so as of rc2, Firefox supports autobuffer attribute and doesn't automatically download everything.  This was related to the following Moz bug: 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479863

Sadly, due to a library conflict, official Mozilla builds crash while using Flash on Fedora: 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=497251

The theory is that Fedora-built versions of Firefox are using --with-system-nss which precludes the conflict.  

I was wondering whether an updated package of FF3.5 based on rc2 could be pushed.  I suppose we can probably wait until the full release, but the constant vigilance for bandwidth usage nearing the end of this month is painful :)

Comment 3 Matěj Cepl 2009-06-25 19:35:38 UTC

Yup, exactly as reporter said. We are downloading and downloading and downloading. I am thankful that I have unlimited ADSL ;-)

Comment 4 Martin Stransky 2009-06-26 07:56:13 UTC

Yeah, seems to be a bug in our build, the latest 3.5 mozilla binaries doesn't download whole video when the page is entered.

Comment 5 Martin Stransky 2009-06-26 08:05:49 UTC

Seems to be fixed in the upcoming 3.5 RC, my local test build fixes that issue.

Comment 6 Matěj Cepl 2009-06-26 08:16:19 UTC

Yes, confirming, upstream binary from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-firefox-3.5.x/ works (annoyingly, flash doesn't work in it). I guess this will get fixed when we get the Fedora build of 3.5rc*

Comment 7 Martin Stransky 2009-07-07 10:59:37 UTC

fixed in firefox-3.5-1.fc11