[Bug 947421] [NEW] Unicode in URL bar produces unexpected results

[Don Faulkner]

Public bug reported:

Today I tried to copy a URL from a Thunderbird email text and then paste
that URL into the Firefox URL bar. Instead of loading the URL, I was
sent to google search with the URL as the search parameter. In other
words, Firefox interpreted my pasted text as a search phrase, not a URL.
When pasted in the URL bar, I saw:

http://www.example.com/sample/url.html   (actual URL redacted for
privacy reasons)

Typing the URL in manually sent me to the correct location.

Further investigation revealed that my copy attempt inside Thunderbird
picked up a stray unicode character at the beginning of the URL. The
original email was sent with Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
and when I pasted the copied text into a plain text editor (vim), I saw
the following:

<200b>http://www.example.com/sample/url.html

where <200b> registers as a single character in the window.

(U+200b) appears to be "Zero Width Space"[1], and I believe that Firefox
is interpreting this as an invalid URL charcter (which it is) and
treating the string as not-a-url.

This is unexpected behavior because (U+200b) is invisible unless you
look carefully after you paste. It is possible to avoid copying the
unicode character at the start of the line, but it requires more care
than most people take when selecting text. The fact that the URL appears
to be perfectly correct in both the URL bar and the google search bar
(after the search completes) is confusing to the user: "why did I end up
here? Why didn't Firefox just load the URL like I told it to?"

I realize that this may cause other issues in the future surrounding
internationalized domain names and URLs, and I don't really have a
suggestion for how best to handle this: unicode isn't my specialty. I
would like to suggest that the best path forward should accomodate the
need to use internationalized URLs without causing unexpected results
like this.

Just in case the "Report a Problem" didn't pick this up, I'm running...
Ubuntu 11.10
Firefox 10.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.11.10.1


[1] http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/200b/index.htm

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: firefox 10.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.11.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-16.28-generic 3.0.17
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-16-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 2/2
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0:  quux      33684 F.... pulseaudio
BuildID: 20120216115113
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf7ffc000 irq 93'
   Mixer name	: 'Analog Devices AD1984A'
   Components	: 'HDA:11d4194a,1028026e,00100400'
   Controls      : 34
   Simple ctrls  : 20
Channel: release
Date: Mon Mar  5 13:18:01 2012
ForcedLayersAccel: False
IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
IncompatibleExtensions:
 LastPass - ID=support at lastpass.com, Version=1.90.0, minVersion=1.9a2, maxVersion=1.9.6, Location=app-profile, Type=extension, Active=Yes
 NoScript - ID={73a6fe31-595d-460b-a920-fcc0f8843232}, Version=2.3.2, minVersion=1.9a2, maxVersion=1.9.6, Location=app-profile, Type=extension, Active=Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
IpRoute:
 default via 130.184.12.5 dev eth0  proto static 
 130.184.12.0/23 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 130.184.12.51  metric 1 
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0  scope link  metric 1000
IwConfig:
 lo        no wireless extensions.
 
 eth0      no wireless extensions.
 
 eth1      no wireless extensions.
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=10.0.2/20120216115113 (Running)
RfKill:
 
RunningIncompatibleAddons: True
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 01/21/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A08
dmi.board.name: 0CRH6C
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A01
dmi.chassis.type: 7
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA08:bd01/21/2011:svnDellInc.:pnPrecisionWorkStationT5500:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0CRH6C:rvrA01:cvnDellInc.:ct7:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Precision WorkStation T5500
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

** Affects: firefox (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug oneiric running-unity

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Title:
  Unicode in URL bar produces unexpected results

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