A website I am visiting occasionally makes XHR requests to http://detectportal.firefox.com/success.txt which is a text/plain resource whose body contains the text success.
I am unable to figure out what the purpose of this HTTP request might be.
It is used by Firefox when detecting whether it is using a captive portal.
A captive portal is a Web page that the user of a public-access network is obliged to view and interact with before access is granted.
Captive portals are typically used by business centers, airports, hotel lobbies, coffee shops, and other venues that offer free Wi-Fi hot spots for Internet users.
http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/captive-portal
success and thus the browser (the javascript) will do something different?
Commented
Mar 16, 2017 at 9:36
success, Firefox will show an alert notification with a link to load the captive portal (so you can accept the terms or login to the filtered wifi connection).
Commented
Mar 28, 2018 at 19:32
Captive portals are generally found at public wi-fi hot-sports, Starbucks, Airports.
Firefox uses this to detect if it's trapped in a captive portal (success.txt not found) or can really access the internet (success.txt found). In other words it's just Firefox checking for a proxied environment.
If you put that URL into your hosts file. Firefox may decide that you are caught in a fake wi-fi hotspot.
Source: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.support.firefox/TJgV_uODg_I/uEe30_njBAAJ
To disable this:
about:config into your location bar. Accept the risk.network.captive-portal-service to falseSource: https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com/towards-quieter-firefox/
