On 8/27/2024 1:37 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in
a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if
I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available. What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Maybe script settings. Script can be used to block copy. It can't be
blocked otherwise. Sometimes an easier method is to toggle CSS off.
I have an extension that gives me a button for that. I use it often to
read poorly designed webpages. If I toggle off CSS then I just see
the page text as simple 13px verdana, my default. Otherwise it's often
triple spaced 20-24px, apparently designed for cellphones. Disabling
CSS will also disable and formatting funny business.

Another thing to consider is NoScript. There's not reason
to risk privacy and security when script isn't actually necessary.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in
a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if
I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available.
What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Ed

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in
a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if
I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available.
What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

See if this helps:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copy-element-s-text/

There have been times when there was text that I wanted to copy (to
paste elsewhere), like just an e-mail address or phone number, but the
ahole web designers decided nothing could be copied despite they were presenting content that was supposed to allow contact. This add-on has helped thwart their stupidity. In addition, sometimes you cannot find a
good spot to start dragging the mouse over text. Instead everywhere
around the text is clickable obviating the down-click to start selecting
the text string. For example, while I can sometimes manage to find a non-clickable region near a search entry at Youtube, it may not be a
spot that then lets me drag the mouse over the text that I want to copy.
For example, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cutest+kitten
shows several hits, and I might find a spot to the right of the
description panel to start dragging, but it's easier to right-click on
the text in the description panel, and right-click to use "Copy text of element".

There have been times, however, when I've had to right-click to Inspect
an element in the web doc to copy text from the HTML code. Alas,
sometimes CSS is so ridiculously heavily used that the element's content cannot be seen unless you dive into the CSS source, and I'm not wasting
that much time on a deliberately obstinate overly coded web doc.

Some web docs are deliberately coded to block right-clicking on
anything. Those disable Javascript on-hover events, so disabling
Javascript might work, too, but when you refresh the page the server
might decide not to deliver the same content.

I've never used Opera which used the Presto rendering engine but
switched to Blink (Opera became a Chromium variant). Different web
browsers have different behaviors even when using the same rendering and
script engines; else, they'd all be the same program.

For MS Edge-C (Chromium variant of Edge), you can use extensions offered
by Microsoft (https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/), or those at
the Chrome store (https://chromewebstore.google.com/). I didn't see an equivalent of "Copy text of element" at the MS store, but found the
following at the Chrome store:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/copy-element-text/lejdjhmnhlhjhfmcalaimioiogkibdea

Opera has its own extensions store, but I couldn't look for an
equivalent add-on at:

https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/

because I got a 500 error (server error). According to you, an add-on
isn't needed.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in
a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if
I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available. What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

See if this helps:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copy-element-s-text/

There have been times when there was text that I wanted to copy (to
paste elsewhere), like just an e-mail address or phone number, but the
ahole web designers decided nothing could be copied despite they were presenting content that was supposed to allow contact. This add-on has
helped thwart their stupidity. In addition, sometimes you cannot find a
good spot to start dragging the mouse over text. Instead everywhere
around the text is clickable obviating the down-click to start selecting
the text string. For example, while I can sometimes manage to find a non-clickable region near a search entry at Youtube, it may not be a
spot that then lets me drag the mouse over the text that I want to copy.
For example, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cutest+kitten
shows several hits, and I might find a spot to the right of the
description panel to start dragging, but it's easier to right-click on
the text in the description panel, and right-click to use "Copy text of element".

There have been times, however, when I've had to right-click to Inspect
an element in the web doc to copy text from the HTML code. Alas,
sometimes CSS is so ridiculously heavily used that the element's content
cannot be seen unless you dive into the CSS source, and I'm not wasting
that much time on a deliberately obstinate overly coded web doc.

Some web docs are deliberately coded to block right-clicking on
anything. Those disable Javascript on-hover events, so disabling
Javascript might work, too, but when you refresh the page the server
might decide not to deliver the same content.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 8/27/2024 1:37 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available.
What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Ed

"How to Copy Text That Can't be Copied on a Website: 8 Ways"

It looks like there is an established industry of anti-anti-copy,
so there will always be some suggestions out there.

We don't want to be putting any ideas out there, on how to make
copying harder. And even posting here, could get scraped some day
by an AI.

*******

Your older browser uses a different version of Javascript, with
some whizzy new stuff missing. Browsers which lack aggressive
update policies, may not be equipped with the latest handcuff kit.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 18:37:55 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote: >Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight text in

a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed out. However, if
I then view the page in another browser (Opera usually) it's available. >What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?
Ed

haven't tested any of these (yet), but as has been suggested, maybe an
older, smaller, portable, "x32" browser might do "anti-anti-copy", e.g.

1. K-Meleon Portable Internet Browser

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/files/k-meleon/75.1/K-Meleon75.1.7z/download

K-Meleon 75.1 (2015-09-19)
Latest stable, official release of K-Meleon.
Available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Italian. >[Download installer] >http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/files/k-meleon/75.1/K-Meleon75.1.exe/download
[Download portable version] >http://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/files/k-meleon/75.1/K-Meleon75.1.7z/download . . .
https://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/files/latest/download (K-Meleon75.1.exe / 25.3 MB)
Ciphers engine update for K-meleon 75.x >http://o.rthost.win/gpc/files1.rt/KM75.1-new-nss.7z

[end quoted excerpt]

see also:

2. OffByone Portable Internet Browser
3. Arora Portable Internet Browser

"text grab" might be a viable alternative when nothing else will do . . .

Text Grab 4.5.1

https://github.com/TheJoeFin/Text-Grab

v4.5.1 Latest
@TheJoeFin TheJoeFin released this 25 Aug 23:26
v4.5.1
8020978
Bug fixes
Fix panning of selection in the Full-Screen Grab not respecting DPI,
thanks @ZGGSONG for the PR
Fix Grab Frame jumping when clicking on a Word Border
Add more common letter number confusions, 5 / S, 8 / B
Improve performance of "Delete All" and "Replace All" methods in Edit
Text Windows Find/Replace Window
https://github.com/TheJoeFin/Text-Grab/releases/download/v4.5.1/Text-Grab-Self-Contained-2024-08-25.zip

(Text-Grab-Self-Contained-2024-08-25.zip / 87.4 MB)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27 Aug 2024, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in alt.comp.os.windows-10:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight
text in a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed
out. However, if I then view the page in another browser (Opera
usually) it's available. What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Try viewing the page in Reader View (F9). That blocks most scripting on
the page and may turn off whatever is built into the page to discourage
copying text.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 28 Aug 2024 13:31:05 -0400, Nil <rednoise9@rednoise9.invalid> wrote: >On 27 Aug 2024, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in >alt.comp.os.windows-10:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight
text in a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed
out. However, if I then view the page in another browser (Opera
usually) it's available. What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Try viewing the page in Reader View (F9). That blocks most scripting on
the page and may turn off whatever is built into the page to discourage >copying text.

+1 . . . just tested this in tor browser 13.5.2, on several websites that
i had recently visited and were in greyed-out "anti-copy" mode . . . will continue to test but this easy solution "enter reader view" [f9] seems to
be working . . . wikipedia was the biggest surprise, everyone quotes them?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Nil <rednoise9@rednoise9.invalid> wrote:

On 27 Aug 2024, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in alt.comp.os.windows-10:

Recently I've been seeing lots of situations wherein I highlight
text in a webpage for copying, right click, but copy is greyed
out. However, if I then view the page in another browser (Opera
usually) it's available. What's changed? Me locally or Firefox?

Try viewing the page in Reader View (F9). That blocks most scripting on
the page and may turn off whatever is built into the page to discourage copying text.

Reader view only works if the web doc is coded to support it. If
supported, you would see an open book icon at the right end of the
address bar in Firefox.

https://i.sstatic.net/L6tY7.png

The following forum thread mentions how the Reader.js incorporate in
Firefox interprets whether a web doc is readable or not.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30730300/optimize-website-to-show-reader-view-in-firefox

The readability.js code is listed at:

https://github.com/mozilla/readability

As an example, you can hit F9 to use Reader View at the above Github
project page. F9 does nothing if used while at a Youtube search page:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cutest+kitten

To date, the OP (Ed Cryer) has not provided URLs for example web docs
where he would like to copy some of its text content. I had not thought
about Reader View until your mention, so it's another possible to the
vague scenario described by the OP.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)