Block Firefox from connecting to sites when you hover over links

[212eta]

I have the habit of hovering over links in web browsers I'm using to look at the linked url before I click.

While I don't do that for all links I'm interested in, I do this 100% of the time for critical links,

e.g. those pointing to financial resources and services that I have an account at.

Most browsers use some sort of preloading or precaching to speed up the connection and sometimes

even the loading process in the browser.

The idea behind this is to improve the process for users by making it snappier and faster.

The downside is that connections are made before an explicit action by the user.

If you hover over links in the Firefox browser for instance, connections are made to those resources

automatically by the browser to improve the loading speed.

To be precise, TCP and SSL handshakes are set up in advance but page contents are not downloaded

until a click on the link is registered.

If you want to prevent Firefox from making connections when you hover over links in the browser,

do the following:

Block Firefox from connecting to sites when you hover over links (ghacks)

[dcs18]

Too late — the staff will be paying you a visit.