Prevent sites from detecting the use of Dev Tools

[KERR]

As per this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/12hdx1v/mozilla_needs_to_launch_their_dev_tools_in_a/

Some sites (don't have any handy right now) detect and "sabotage" your browsing if you open dev tools. For example, they'll go into a debugger mode or become unusuable, telling you to close dev tools to continue.

The thread has some ideas about detection/prevention, tbh I'm not sure if this idea is possible but it would be useful.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[KERR]

^ an example of a site that blocks you if you open dev tools. Link available on request (it's a dodgy streaming site with heaps of ads 😁)

[Honza]

Thank you for the link! We are actively looking into this (and fixed several things in the past).

[RandiO]

netmattersdotcome also detects/blocks FFv114 dev tools console.

[xenothestrange]

This is still a problem.

For my example the site is 9anime.id (or new site they moved to)

When the developer tools are opened on some pages it spams "debugger" statements and (if you turn those off) redirects you to another page.

The other page blacks out the screen and tries to DOS the user with console.table() statements to lag out the browser.

If the console object is undefined or null then u can browse as normal but are unable to use the tools as intended. This also applies to the browser console if it's in multiple (whatever) mode rather than watching the parent process only.

[dkauffman]

How has it been years and this is still an issue, it's only purpose is to break your browser and gum up your CPU. For a privacy-focused browser, this is a massive blind spot in safety.

The solution of "oh, well, only power users use dev tools, so who cares" is becoming embarrassing when Mozilla used to be the company looking to empower the average user.

[empi00]

Still no solution but its a very important problem to solve, given how some websites change their content or redirect you upon discovering devtools being opened.

[gauranggupta]

@HonzaAny update on this? Is a feature being worked on for the same ?

Also is there a way to avoid this within the browser using some settings ?

[worse_is_better]

Still a major issue.

Most sites that do this use this scummy code or some variation of it. Currently uBlock Origin blocks this, but they're always going back and forth. This needs to be fixed in the browser. There's no legitimate reason for a site to know if a user has devtools open, and under no circumstance should a site have the ability to remove or restrict access to any of the browser's functionality.

[mdk]

I agree that Firefox should fix this, but in the meantime, if someone really wants to look at network requests, there's an quick and easy way to do it via `about:logging`.

In other words, using things like disable-devtool is obviously useless.

[Zai]

Agreed.

[Alessio89]

bump, this issue isn't solved.

[Alessio89]

example of a website that prevents dev tools to be used: chillychiles.com

[Honza]

@Alessio89 can you please file a bug in our bug tracker here + STRs :

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=DevTools&component=General

That would help us to track this and figure out how to fix.

Thank you!

[xenothestrange]

This is the current location of a 9anime clone which does as I described above.
https://9animetv.to/watch/baka-to-test-to-shoukanjuu-mini-anime-4611

Maybe there could be some sort of toggle as to whether a particular site can use the developer tools api (or whatever) by default so it appears invisible to the site (?) idk. Just brainstorming.
One can investigate further the obfuscated scripts on that wepbage to see how it's detecting the devtools (once you get it to stop calling "debugger" which it does by concatenating strings.