Network.enableIDN
From MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Background
IDN support allows users to enter domain names containing extended characters that aren’t supported in “standard” URLs. This makes it possible for international websites to register domain names using characters native to local languages. This preference determines whether Mozilla will parse and load IDNs.
Possible values and their effects
True
Parse and try to resolve internationalized domain names entered in the Location Bar and in links. (Default)
False
Do not parse or resolve IDNs.
Caveats
- Past versions of Mozilla products have had security issues with the built-in IDN support. Specifically, a type of website spoofing attack and a heap overrun attack due to a parser bug. In both cases, IDN support was temporarily disabled with this preference until a better solution was developed.
- IDN support is limited to a subset of all top-level domains, enumerated in preferences.
- Certain characters that are technically legal in IDNs are blacklisted, and cause the domain name to be shown as punycode.
First checked in
Has an effect in
- Netscape (all versions since 7.0)
- Mozilla Suite (all versions since 0.9.9)
- Mozilla Phoenix (all versions)
- Mozilla Firebird (all versions)
- Mozilla Firefox (all versions)
- SeaMonkey (all versions)
Related bugs
- Bug 110028 - IDN rendering in URL bar
- Bug 124042 - support internationalized resource identifiers (UTF-8 URI)
- Bug 282270 - Display IDN urls as punycode by default (pref controlled)
- Bug 307259 - Firefox 1.0.6 buffer overflow with hostname of all soft hyphens
- Bug 842282 - Remove network.enableIDN pref (Firefox 22+)