I use Windows for work and Firefox was having issues with DNS resolution. I reached out to my IT and they couldn’t figure it out. Chrome was also failing to resolve the IP: timing out/errors with connection status.
But Microsoft Edge was totally fine. It resolved websites without an issue. I told IT about this, but they said they haven’t implemented any policies that would hurt Firefox or Chrome. I found some forums online where people suggested renaming the Firefox.exe to something else; I renamed the executable to Fox.exe and suddenly it worked - immediately. I tried A/B testing this. I renamed it back to Firefox.exe and it failed again. Renamed it to Fox.exe and it worked.
What the hell is this? Someone said it was Microsoft Defender, but my IT didn’t seem to think so and I trust them. They would have just said “don’t use Firefox” if they didn’t want me using it. They spent quite a bit of time reading logs and such to help me debug this.
I don’t understand how something like this can pass under Window’s radar. Bizarre behavior that seemed to impact any non-Edge browser. Super sketchy.
For now, I run Fox.exe. But this does cause issues. Windows - in all of its genius - doesn’t recognize Fox.exe as a browser. I can’t set it as a default browser for my OS. That means the OS fails on all hyperlinks since it doesn’t have a default browser to open them. Slack, Outlook, etc. They all fail. So now I’m left copy/pasting links into my browser URL bar if I need them.
I hate Windows. /rant
Whoever suggested you rename the executable is a @#^%ing psychopath. That’s the single dumbest suggestion I’ve ever heard of anyone, anywhere, ever, suggesting in my entire life- so if they had you do anything else, I’d suggest rolling those changes back, uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox.
THEN open Firefox’s settings and check what “DNS over HTTPS” and “Enable secure DNS using:” settings.
I have already tried all of those settings. I debugged everything in the network settings on Firefox and my OS for hours and hours prior to finding the forum with renaming the executable.
Secondly, it was highly effective? So I don’t think they are crazy. Thirdly, naming an executable is not a big deal. I’m a software engineer and it’s not a big deal to change a filename. I don’t know why you reacted so intensely. But I can assure you I’ve tried every network setting I could find. I manually changed the DNS in my network adapter. I changed Firefox’s DNS over HTTP. I tried various proxy settings. I tested all of this over a VPN and without a VPN. I found several possible settings in the about:config settings for Firefox which made no difference.
The only thing that worked was renaming the executable and - like I said - A/B testing it was consistent. It seems like Windows is doing some sort of check to prevent it from doing certain network operations.