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Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob

Premium Member

[FireFox] Why do I see these little question marks ?

Here is a small screen shot from a website. Please note the little question marks in the text. I had not seen these using Firefox in a while, but I have seen them in the past. What is the cause and is there a fix ?

ZZZZZZZ
Premium Member
join:2001-05-27
PARADISE

ZZZZZZZ

Premium Member

What's the website..........those may be links to extra info?

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob

Premium Member

said by ZZZZZZZ:

What's the website..........those may be links to extra info?

No extra info. It is drudgereport.com. But I have seen this on other sites also.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

darcilicious to Racerbob

Premium Member

to Racerbob
It's a character encoding issue -- either with your browser and/or their server. On my Firefox, they show up as the funky version of a single quote (the ones that lean a bit, not like this one: ' ).

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY

Racerbob

Premium Member

OK...in Internet Explorer, the site looks fine. I did find that character encoding issue when I Googled the issue.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine to Racerbob

Member

to Racerbob
In Firefox, go to View->Character Encoding and let us know what is checked there. You may have this set in your preferences as something not compatible with the site.

Their markup is rather antiquated and I'm going to guess your FF is set to utf-8? They are serving it as Windows-1252 which is strange for this modern age we live in.

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY

Racerbob

Premium Member

Yes, set to utf-8. I never mess with that setting. Do you suggest changing it ?

EDIT: Well I did change it and the site looks normal now.

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely to howardfine

Premium Member

to howardfine
What *should* the Character Encoding be set to? In the past I've had the same issue as the OP but I see my browser is currently set to Western (Windows-1252).

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

1 edit

Racerbob

Premium Member

I did set mine to that Steely and I am seeing no further issues.

EDIT: I take that back. I did change it, but I see that it has changed back to what it was. Weird. And now I clicked the view button and see it at the 1252 setting. Seems that it wants to switch at random ?
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned) to Steely

Member

to Steely
It should be set to Western (ISO-8859-1).

Steely
I rise when the sun goes down
Premium Member
join:2000-10-15
Princeton Junction, NJ

Steely

Premium Member

Easy enough to change, but if that's the default, how would it have ended up on a different setting if I (or the OP) never messed with it before? Would an extension change it?
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

2 edits

47717768 (banned)

Member

It would be in Options - Options - Content tab than Advanced button under Fonts & Colors.

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob to 47717768

Premium Member

to 47717768
said by 47717768:

It should be set to Western (ISO-8859-1).

Mine was set to that there. So does each website have a default and this is why it changes ?
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

1 edit

47717768 (banned)

Member

No. The websites you are visiting should not matter. Some websites are incomparable with a specific browser. Give me the URL to the website you are trying to access.

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY

Racerbob

Premium Member

When I go to Facebook, it changes to UTF-8. At www.drudgereport.com it is Windows-1252. Here it is the same. So it seems to take a default setting at each website.
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned)

Member

I am able to access the website you have given link to just fine, but the design of this site looks terrible. Try lunching Firefox in safe mode by going to Help than Restart with Add-ons disabled

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob

Premium Member

I do not see what that is going to do for me. The Drudge site looks fine for me and I do not see the little question marks as my example above shows. when I go there. Encoding is at 1252. If I force it back to UTF-8 while there I see some of the little question marks again. Usually his site appears ok to me. Today was the first time that I noticed it happening there. As I said, when I go to Facebook the encoding shows at the other setting.. UTF-8. I have seen this question mark (or other symbols) deal in the past at other websites while using Firefox.
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned)

Member

I am sorry, but i do not see a Facebook link on that site. What Safe mode will do is if you are able to view the site just like you wanted to than it could be caused by one of the extensions. If nothing helps i would reinstall Firefox.

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob

Premium Member

Thanks Oleg. It is not that much of a nuisance at all, but it raises the question as to how character encoding is handled. I uninstall and reinstall FF a lot on a regular basis. Next week we will see the 23.0 final released and I will once again do a clean install of that.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine

Member

Don't listen to Oleg. He's wrong. Web sites can and do set the character encoding for their site. Part of that evidence you noticed when you saw it change when you visited different sites. A modern web site will use UTF8 but, as I pointed out, drudge does not. All my client sites do.

There's nothing wrong with your browser. Quit futzing with it.
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

3 edits

47717768 (banned)

Member

said by howardfine:

Don't listen to Oleg. He's wrong. Web sites can and do set the character encoding for their site. Part of that evidence you noticed when you saw it change when you visited different sites. A modern web site will use UTF8 but, as I pointed out, drudge does not. All my client sites do.

There's nothing wrong with your browser. Quit futzing with it.

So are you saying websites could make changes to your browser settings?
The only sites that do that. The ones who contain virus.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

1 edit

howardfine

Member

Didnt say that at all. A site can declare what the character encoding is set in and they should and it gets flagged as an error if you don't.

EDIT: this is technical. I don't expect you to understand it. »www.w3.org/International ··· har-enc/

Racerbob
Premium Member
join:2001-06-24
Webster, NY
·Frontier FiberOp..

Racerbob to howardfine

Premium Member

to howardfine
Thank you. It really is nothing that I had paid much attention to in the past. But I have seen question marks and other symbols using Firefox at other sites from time to time. I really never paid attention to character encoding or even raised this issue with anyone before today. I just thought that it was an occasional issue with running the Firefox browser. (indeed it is because I do not see these issues if I visit the same sites using IE or Chrome)
47717768 (banned)
join:2003-12-08
Birmingham, AL

47717768 (banned) to howardfine

Member

to howardfine
I thought that Racerbob was talking about the browser would reset encoding settings in the browser. Anyway here is how this site looks on my end »s13.postimg.org/kbpx0nnn ··· site.png

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine to Racerbob

Member

to Racerbob
I believe you can force an encoding in your settings which will cause this issue but then you'd be fighting against the site and there's no reason to do that.

You might enjoy the link in my edited post but probably not.