Bug#611955: users powerless to prevent loss of scrollbar

Fri Feb 4 03:44:22 UTC 2011

On 02/03/2011 09:57 PM, jidanni at jidanni.org wrote:
> Package: iceweasel
> Version: 4.0~b10-1
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> As you see browsing
> http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=e0456789j&b=23&f=1100870989&p=7 a
> poorly designed website has the power to choose to take the scrollbar
> away, and the Firefox user is _powerless_ to stop them.
> [...]

The first two lines of
<http://f10.wretch.yimg.com/e0456789j/files/album.css?1231503417> (the
first CSS file referenced by that web page) are:
  HTML {
  OVERFLOW:hidden;}

This is standard CSS, designed to either hide or show content that
overflows its container element (in this ugly case, the entire <html>
element). If Firefox/Iceweasel didn't allow this, it would be an
incomplete CSS implementation. The problem is therefore a usability
issue in the website (so complain to the web designers, really really
loudly as things like this bother me as well), not a power trip or evil
plot of Firefox developers.

In the meantime, an extension like Firebug will let you disable that
style, restoring the scrolling ability.