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FF keeps popping to front window, why? It's soo annoying!
For example, if I am reading an article through Chrome, or Openoffice or doing something else on the Laptop, all of a sudden FF pops to the front and appears, taking me away from whatever I am doing on another page.
What causes FF to do this and why does it do it all the time and how can I stop it from happening?
Cheers.
Does this happen only on the portable version, or on a local install as well?
If it also happens on a local install you should report it to Mozilla as nothing can be done about it by PortableApps.
I only use portableapps FF, never used the local install version and have no interest in installing the local version.
Does it happen to you as well on the portableapps FF? The Portablepps FF keeps coming up to the front of screen, and it's very annoying. Never used to happen before version 7.
I honestly don't use the portable FF anymore except to show it off to people who don't know about it.
The only time I use Firefox is when I need FireBug and FireQuery, so a local install runs better. Or I use Pale Moon, which is FF optimized for modern CPUs.
For actual portable browsing I use Iron portable.
So, back to the question, no it never happens to me, but that is no real indication of whether it is a problem or not.
I honestly don't use the portable FF anymore except to show it off to people who don't know about it.
Why is that? (Sorry, but I'm going to be defensive for my favorite browser :))
Used to be my favourite as well, but I find myself playing a lot of web-based games when I'm at home. In general, games running on Flash, as well as graphic intensive Javascript games, just run better on a Chromium-based browser.
Plus, I spend a few days a week developing a web app that makes heavy use of Google Maps, and FF4 introduced some issues that made working with it annoying. They were still there in FF5, but I haven't tested with 6 or 7.
So, yeah, generally I just use Iron as it fills my need pretty well, is (for me) quite stable, and then just use Firefox when I need FireBug and FireQuery.
sandboxie IE is now doing it too, so its just not ff portable.
no idea why its doing it.
As I've never seen nor heard of this behavior in FF and you have more than one app doing it, I'd wager it's something else on your system.
I never experienced anything like that, but I usually only have FF running when I need it. What window does appear?
Do you have Firefox Portable open in the background?
Yes, ff portableapps version is always running. And it will keep coming to the front screen whatever else I may be doing at the time.
So YES, Ff portableapps is running in background but if I then load another program like MSN or Openoffice or Chrome etc and do something in those programs, all of a sudden, regularly, ff portableapps will pop itself to the front window of screen and take me away from whatever else I was doing on another program.
WHY IS FF portableapps doing that? And I wonder if the normal version is doing it too? And is there a way to stop this happening so that FF portableapps stays in the background ALL THE TIME until I personally want to use it.
Anyone shed some light on this?
I use Firefox, Portable Edition on a daily basis, and have for a number of years, and have never had this issue, not even after updating to the 7.x line. Maybe it's something on your system or in your extensions causing this behaviour.
Oh. I thought you were talking about upon startup.
Could you try going to about:config (type it in the url), search for browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground, and change it to "true"?
I believe that behavior is the default for all Windows applications?
Doing a quick Google search, I see a few other people who have the same issue & have it listed as a bug (doesn't seem to matter if it's a local install or not).
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=focus+stealing
One suggestion is to use TweakUI to prevent windows from stealing focus... you might give that a try. I did that, and I also have set FF to load tabs in the background and I don't have any issues. Hope this helps. 
Hi Steve, thanks for your reply. SO it seems I am not the only one and that it's actually a FF bug. How do I use TweakUI to prevent ff portableapps from stealing focus?
And do you know the official site for TweakUI for Vista?
Not necessarily. That was a bugzilla query for "focus stealing". Looking through the titles, I doubt any of those 51 bugs listed were yours.
TweakUI is an application released by Microsoft. You can download it through their website. You have to scroll down and dig for the link though.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-xp
Gluxon is correct, which is why I put the general "focus+stealing" Bugzilla link in my comment to show that a number of things can cause that to happen. In TweakUI the setting is under 'General' then 'Focus'. I have mine set to flash the taskbar button 2 times. It's definitely worth a try. Know that I am just a user, not an expert. 
I am using Vista not XP.
In short, there is no answer or solution for your problem. All Windows applications do this. I'm not sure why you think it's only Firefox. TweakUI can be used on your personal computer, but it will obviously not be something that you can mess with on public computers.
Your comments gluxon are in error because not all windows applications do it at all! Only FF portableapps is doing it!
Actually, it's not. You didn't mention that this was randomly happening while Firefox was already opened until just now. I assumed it was happening upon startup, which is normal.
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