The longer the URL, the more likely it is that the user would have to wait longer than usual for the page to load. Firefox developers addressed this issue by limiting the length of links that the browser will attempt to load.
This change only affected Firefox for Android. Firefox for desktop operating systems did not receive this change. Due to this, Firefox developers had to find a different way to reduce the length of excessively long URLs.
Limiting the Number of Redirects in a Page
If there is too many redirects in a single web page, it makes it difficult for users to navigate through the site. To reduce the number of redirects that a page has, Firefox for Android developed a new extension called Network Limiter. This extension will limit the number of redirects that are sent from the server to the browser. If you try to visit a website with too many redirects, Firefox will not load any additional pages until you disable this extension.
CVE-2023-40465
Some Firefox versions prior to the current version (57) will not load a link that is longer than 256 characters.
This change only affected Firefox for Android. Firefox for desktop operating systems did not receive this change. Due to this, Firefox developers had to find a different way to reduce the length of excessively long URLs.
Web Page Loading Time
Although this change was made to reduce the load time of long URLs, it had some undesirable consequences too. One of these consequences was that short URLs were now being blocked as well. This is because when the URL is too short to load or if it contains characters that are forbidden in a URL, Firefox will automatically reject it.
How do I know if my site is affected by this bug?
This bug only affected Firefox for Android. Firefox for desktop operating systems did not receive this change.
Timeline
Published on: 12/22/2022 20:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 01/04/2023 02:36:00 UTC