I use the BBC News app now and again. On looking at battery usage
recently it appeared that the app was using the battery (calling home?)
even when I wasn't using it. So I disabled access to both Wi-Fi and
Mobile Data.

Today I wanted to get some info on a news item I'd heard on the radio so
opened Firefox and used Startpage to find some links. One of them was a
BBC news page. So I clicked on it and Firefox showed that the page
wasn't available:

ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED

I tried with Vivaldi and got the same result. Other webpages at
newspaper sites all worked perfectly with either browser. Intrigued, I
cleared out all history and cookies, re-enabled the BBC News app access
to mobile data, and did the same searches for the news story with
Firefox and Vivaldi. On clicking on the BBC news link, the pages now
appeared without problem.

Can anyone confirm this happens? If so, why?

--
Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:

> I use the BBC News app now and again. On looking at battery usage
> recently it appeared that the app was using the battery (calling home?)
> even when I wasn't using it. So I disabled access to both Wi-Fi and
> Mobile Data.
>
> Today I wanted to get some info on a news item I'd heard on the radio so
> opened Firefox and used Startpage to find some links. One of them was a
> BBC news page. So I clicked on it and Firefox showed that the page
> wasn't available:
>
> ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED
>
> I tried with Vivaldi and got the same result. Other webpages at
> newspaper sites all worked perfectly with either browser. Intrigued, I
> cleared out all history and cookies, re-enabled the BBC News app access
> to mobile data, and did the same searches for the news story with
> Firefox and Vivaldi. On clicking on the BBC news link, the pages now
> appeared without problem.
>
> Can anyone confirm this happens? If so, why?

Try settings > open links in apps > Ask or never
I have never but you might have other apps you want to use.
--
Remove numerics from my email address.

On 17/10/2024 09:54, Dave Royal wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:
>
>> I use the BBC News app now and again. On looking at battery usage
>> recently it appeared that the app was using the battery (calling home?)
>> even when I wasn't using it. So I disabled access to both Wi-Fi and
>> Mobile Data.
>>
>> Today I wanted to get some info on a news item I'd heard on the radio so
>> opened Firefox and used Startpage to find some links. One of them was a
>> BBC news page. So I clicked on it and Firefox showed that the page
>> wasn't available:
>>
>> ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED
>>
>> I tried with Vivaldi and got the same result. Other webpages at
>> newspaper sites all worked perfectly with either browser. Intrigued, I
>> cleared out all history and cookies, re-enabled the BBC News app access
>> to mobile data, and did the same searches for the news story with
>> Firefox and Vivaldi. On clicking on the BBC news link, the pages now
>> appeared without problem.
>>
>> Can anyone confirm this happens? If so, why?
>
> Try settings > open links in apps > Ask or never
> I have never but you might have other apps you want to use.

Thanks, Dave. That was it.

Firefox has it in Settings | Advanced | Open links in apps - set to
Always (default)

Vivaldi has it in Settings | Content Settings| Stay in browser - set to
Off (default)

So doing the same thing but in completely opposite ways! I'm note sure
exactly what Brave does. In Settings it has:
Open external links in Brave:
Opens links from other apps in a Brave webview. Note: Brave must be set
as your default browser.
That setting was set to Off (default). Brave isn't my default browser
anyway.

--
Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Thanks, Dave. That was it.
>
> Firefox has it in Settings | Advanced | Open links in apps - set to
> Always (default)
>
> Vivaldi has it in Settings | Content Settings| Stay in browser - set to
> Off (default)
>
> So doing the same thing but in completely opposite ways! I'm note sure
> exactly what Brave does. In Settings it has:
> Open external links in Brave:
> Opens links from other apps in a Brave webview. Note: Brave must be set
> as your default browser.
> That setting was set to Off (default). Brave isn't my default browser
> anyway.

Note that you can change the settings the other way around too - if you go
Settings -> Apps -> BBC News -> Open by default

there's a toggle of 'open supported links' and then a list of links it'll
open (there might be things like *.bbc.co.uk and *.bbc.com in there). If
you unset the 'open supported' toggle or edit the list you can stop it
detecting links to open.

That means you can re-enable 'open links in apps' on your browser and it'll
still be able to open links in other apps if you want them to do that.

Theo

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:

> On 17/10/2024 09:54, Dave Royal wrote:
>>
>> Try settings > open links in apps > Ask or never
>> I have never but you might have other apps you want to use.
>
> Thanks, Dave. That was it.
>
> Firefox has it in Settings | Advanced | Open links in apps - set to
> Always (default)
>
> Vivaldi has it in Settings | Content Settings| Stay in browser - set to
> Off (default)
>
> So doing the same thing but in completely opposite ways! I'm note sure
> exactly what Brave does. In Settings it has:
> Open external links in Brave:
> Opens links from other apps in a Brave webview. Note: Brave must be set
> as your default browser.
> That setting was set to Off (default). Brave isn't my default browser
> anyway.
>
I don't think the Firefox default is 'always'. I have release,
beta, and nightly on this device and all are set to 'never'.
--
Remove numerics from my email address.

On 17/10/2024 13:05, Theo wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Thanks, Dave. That was it.
>>
>> Firefox has it in Settings | Advanced | Open links in apps - set to
>> Always (default)
>>
>> Vivaldi has it in Settings | Content Settings| Stay in browser - set to
>> Off (default)
>>
>> So doing the same thing but in completely opposite ways! I'm note sure
>> exactly what Brave does. In Settings it has:
>> Open external links in Brave:
>> Opens links from other apps in a Brave webview. Note: Brave must be set
>> as your default browser.
>> That setting was set to Off (default). Brave isn't my default browser
>> anyway.
>
> Note that you can change the settings the other way around too - if you go
> Settings -> Apps -> BBC News -> Open by default

I couldn't see an "Open by default" in my general Android settings or
the browser settings. Which did you mean (and which version of Android?
Mine's 13).

> there's a toggle of 'open supported links' and then a list of links it'll
> open (there might be things like *.bbc.co.uk and *.bbc.com in there). If
> you unset the 'open supported' toggle or edit the list you can stop it
> detecting links to open.

I didn't see anything like that, but I could have missed it.

> That means you can re-enable 'open links in apps' on your browser and it'll
> still be able to open links in other apps if you want them to do that.

--
Jeff

On 17/10/2024 13:07, Dave Royal wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:
>
>> On 17/10/2024 09:54, Dave Royal wrote:
>>>
>>> Try settings > open links in apps > Ask or never
>>> I have never but you might have other apps you want to use.
>>
>> Thanks, Dave. That was it.
>>
>> Firefox has it in Settings | Advanced | Open links in apps - set to
>> Always (default)
>>
>> Vivaldi has it in Settings | Content Settings| Stay in browser - set to
>> Off (default)
>>
>> So doing the same thing but in completely opposite ways! I'm note sure
>> exactly what Brave does. In Settings it has:
>> Open external links in Brave:
>> Opens links from other apps in a Brave webview. Note: Brave must be set
>> as your default browser.
>> That setting was set to Off (default). Brave isn't my default browser
>> anyway.
>>
> I don't think the Firefox default is 'always'. I have release,
> beta, and nightly on this device and all are set to 'never'.

That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
131.0.3).

--
Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 17/10/2024 13:05, Theo wrote:
> > Note that you can change the settings the other way around too - if you go
> > Settings -> Apps -> BBC News -> Open by default
>
> I couldn't see an "Open by default" in my general Android settings or
> the browser settings. Which did you mean (and which version of Android?
> Mine's 13).

14, GrapheneOS but I don't think they change that bit?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77370760/why-installation-in-some-android-devices-does-not-set-open-by-default-open-suppo
shows the screen.

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> I use the BBC News app now and again. On looking at battery usage
> recently it appeared that the app was using the battery (calling home?)
> even when I wasn't using it. So I disabled access to both Wi-Fi and
> Mobile Data.
>
> Today I wanted to get some info on a news item I'd heard on the radio so
> opened Firefox and used Startpage to find some links. One of them was a
> BBC news page. So I clicked on it and Firefox showed that the page
> wasn't available:
>
> ERR_NETWORK_ACCESS_DENIED
>
> I tried with Vivaldi and got the same result. Other webpages at
> newspaper sites all worked perfectly with either browser. Intrigued, I
> cleared out all history and cookies, re-enabled the BBC News app access
> to mobile data, and did the same searches for the news story with
> Firefox and Vivaldi. On clicking on the BBC news link, the pages now
> appeared without problem.
>
> Can anyone confirm this happens? If so, why?

Looks like Dave gave a workable solution for you. However, another
possible reason a site may not grant your access to it is from
geofencing. I'm in the USA, and sometimes have hit BBC's geofence for
some articles. Last time was for some sporting event. For some of
their content, you have to be within a region within which they allow
access.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofence

You can try to use public proxies, VPNs, or Tor that have an exit mode
within the allowable region: the exit node has an IP address whose
geolocation is within the allowable region for access. However, all of
those are known (have been mapped), so there are blacklists of them that
sites can use to prevent crossing their geofence.

Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> wrote:

> I don't think the Firefox default is 'always'. I have release,
> beta, and nightly on this device and all are set to 'never'.

That's my setting, too; however, I often change settings like that as a
consequence of some problematic event, so it's possible I changed it.
When the default web browser is given a URL, I want the web browser to
load the web document, not have it pass the request to some other app.

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
> 131.0.3).

Firefox 131.0.3
Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)

Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).

On 17/10/2024 16:56, VanguardLH wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
>> 131.0.3).
>
> Firefox 131.0.3
> Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)
>
> Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
> Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).

Thanks, but I had already seen that (see my first reply to Dave).

What I was trying to say was that until /today/ I don't remember seeing
it. Do you know in which version of Firefox that option first appeared?

--
Jeff

On 17/10/2024 16:53, VanguardLH wrote:
> Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't think the Firefox default is 'always'. I have release,
>> beta, and nightly on this device and all are set to 'never'.
>
> That's my setting, too; however, I often change settings like that as a
> consequence of some problematic event, so it's possible I changed it.
> When the default web browser is given a URL, I want the web browser to
> load the web document, not have it pass the request to some other app.

+1

Which is why I couldn't understand when I first found it today it was
set to "always". :-(

--
Jeff

On 17/10/2024 14:24, Theo wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 17/10/2024 13:05, Theo wrote:
>>> Note that you can change the settings the other way around too - if you go
>>> Settings -> Apps -> BBC News -> Open by default
>>
>> I couldn't see an "Open by default" in my general Android settings or
>> the browser settings. Which did you mean (and which version of Android?
>> Mine's 13).
>
> 14, GrapheneOS but I don't think they change that bit?
>
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77370760/why-installation-in-some-android-devices-does-not-set-open-by-default-open-suppo
> shows the screen.

I don't understand what clevelink is. Is it an app of some sort? If so,
it's not available from the Play Store or F-Droid.

With that stackover.com page up I clicked on the first link
(<https://clevelink.github.io/details>), but that just resulted in a
404. The link to assetlinks.json just revealed some code. How is it used
(if that's what clevelink is all about)?

I then went to the github home page and asked it to search for
clevelink. All I got was:

Whoa there!

You have exceeded a secondary rate limit.

Please wait a few minutes before you try again;
in some cases this may take up to an hour.

A general search using Startpage and DDG came up with nothing of relevance.

--
Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 17/10/2024 14:24, Theo wrote:
> > Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >> On 17/10/2024 13:05, Theo wrote:
> >>> Note that you can change the settings the other way around too - if you go
> >>> Settings -> Apps -> BBC News -> Open by default
> >>
> >> I couldn't see an "Open by default" in my general Android settings or
> >> the browser settings. Which did you mean (and which version of Android?
> >> Mine's 13).
> >
> > 14, GrapheneOS but I don't think they change that bit?
> >
> > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77370760/why-installation-in-some-android-devices-does-not-set-open-by-default-open-suppo
> > shows the screen.
>
> I don't understand what clevelink is. Is it an app of some sort? If so,
> it's not available from the Play Store or F-Droid.

I think clevelink is an app developed by the guy making that post. He's
trying to get his Github web link to open his app and asking for help.

That's not relevant, but the post shows the 'Open by default' screen for a
random app, which happens to be clevelink in this post but could equally be
BBC News. And that's on a Samsung running Android 13, so it's not a special
14 feature.
Theo

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
>>> 131.0.3).
>>
>> Firefox 131.0.3
>> Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)
>>
>> Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
>> Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).
>
> Thanks, but I had already seen that (see my first reply to Dave).
>
> What I was trying to say was that until /today/ I don't remember seeing
> it. Do you know in which version of Firefox that option first appeared?

Unfortunately Mozilla's https://mzl.la/3dpdrJ2 article doesn't mention
when this feature was first added in which version of Firefox. I've
seen discussions on this option going back to Jan 2020; for example,
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1276859.

On 18/10/2024 03:27, VanguardLH wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>
>>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
>>>> 131.0.3).
>>>
>>> Firefox 131.0.3
>>> Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)
>>>
>>> Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
>>> Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).
>>
>> Thanks, but I had already seen that (see my first reply to Dave).
>>
>> What I was trying to say was that until /today/ I don't remember seeing
>> it. Do you know in which version of Firefox that option first appeared?
>
> Unfortunately Mozilla's https://mzl.la/3dpdrJ2 article doesn't mention
> when this feature was first added in which version of Firefox. I've
> seen discussions on this option going back to Jan 2020; for example,
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1276859.

I see in that support webpage that it was only in the nightly version,
and that it was expected to be in a release version. I guess it appeared
shortly after (I found refs to it in 2021).

It's a pity that Android Firefox updates don't have a "Release notes"
link in the same way that desktop versions do.

--
Jeff

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:

> On 18/10/2024 03:27, VanguardLH wrote:
>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
>>>>> 131.0.3).
>>>>
>>>> Firefox 131.0.3
>>>> Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)
>>>>
>>>> Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
>>>> Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).
>>>
>>> Thanks, but I had already seen that (see my first reply to Dave).
>>>
>>> What I was trying to say was that until /today/ I don't remember seeing
>>> it. Do you know in which version of Firefox that option first appeared?
>>
>> Unfortunately Mozilla's https://mzl.la/3dpdrJ2 article doesn't mention
>> when this feature was first added in which version of Firefox. I've
>> seen discussions on this option going back to Jan 2020; for example,
>> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1276859.
>
> I see in that support webpage that it was only in the nightly version,
> and that it was expected to be in a release version. I guess it appeared
> shortly after (I found refs to it in 2021).
>
> It's a pity that Android Firefox updates don't have a "Release notes"
> link in the same way that desktop versions do.
>

Settings, About Firefox, What's new...
If it's a bug release go back a bit, so 131.0.3 to 131.0

<https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/131.0/releasenotes/>
--
Remove numerics from my email address.

On 18/10/2024 08:13, Dave Royal wrote:
> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:
>
>> On 18/10/2024 03:27, VanguardLH wrote:
>>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> VanguardLH wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> That's strange. I don't remember seeing it, let alone change it (Fx
>>>>>> 131.0.3).
>>>>>
>>>>> Firefox 131.0.3
>>>>> Android 8.0.0 (yeah, pretty old)
>>>>>
>>>>> Firefox menu -> Settings -> scroll down to Advanced section
>>>>> Open links in apps = Never (my current setting).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, but I had already seen that (see my first reply to Dave).
>>>>
>>>> What I was trying to say was that until /today/ I don't remember seeing
>>>> it. Do you know in which version of Firefox that option first appeared?
>>>
>>> Unfortunately Mozilla's https://mzl.la/3dpdrJ2 article doesn't mention
>>> when this feature was first added in which version of Firefox. I've
>>> seen discussions on this option going back to Jan 2020; for example,
>>> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1276859.
>>
>> I see in that support webpage that it was only in the nightly version,
>> and that it was expected to be in a release version. I guess it appeared
>> shortly after (I found refs to it in 2021).
>>
>> It's a pity that Android Firefox updates don't have a "Release notes"
>> link in the same way that desktop versions do.
>>
>
> Settings, About Firefox, What's new...
> If it's a bug release go back a bit, so 131.0.3 to 131.0
>
> <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/131.0/releasenotes/>

Thanks for that. I must have seen something like it sometime, but
forgotten it. I can't remember, but does a link pop up to release notes
when Fx for android is updated, like it does in a desktop Fx?

Unfortunately the moz pages don't help that much. I tried to find a list
of all release notes within the moz pages, but in the end it was
Wikipedia which helped. It lists all FX Android release notes. I started
with 2020, and moved forward. I found "Users can now choose whether to
be asked every time they open a link that would open in another app." in
112.0 (11 April 2023), which seems to suggest it was there earlier, but
I didn't see it in 68.4.0 onwards.

--
Jeff