Network.enableIDN

From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. The correct title is network.enableIDN.

This article describes the preference network.enableIDN. To add, delete, or modify this preference, you will need to edit your configuration — do not edit this article.

1 Background
2 Possible values and their effects
- 2.1 True
- 2.2 False
3 Caveats
4 First checked in
5 Has an effect in
6 Related bugs
7 Related preferences
8 External links

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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.

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Possible values and their effects

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True

Parse and try to resolve internationalized domain names entered in the Location Bar and in links. (Default)

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False

Do not parse or resolve IDNs.

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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.

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