Automatic offline mode

Current versions of Firefox and Thunderbird poll the operating system's
network connectivity status at start-up and continuously while running,
and automatically switch to offline mode whenever connectivity is not
present, or is (even temporarily) lost. There is no user-configurable
option to disable this behaviour.

What's more, the on/offline status indicator that used to be located to
the far left in the status bar on the Mozilla Comm. Suite (and may still
be present in Seamonkey) is no longer present in Firefox (at least, as
of ver. 3). So the user attempts to access a web page, gets the offline
status notification page instead, and then has to navigate the menus,
select 'work online', and reload the page to go back online. Do this
often enough, and the user is soon looking for a different software package.

One only needs to search the web (Google or whatever) for "firefox
offline mode disable" (which is listed in Google's drop-down box as a
frequently performed search) to read the numerous posts in various
support forums from discommoded, inconvenienced, and irritated users
seeking some fix or work-around to disable this behaviour, because there
is no user option to shut it off. One irate user's commentary, posted to
support.mozilla.com by 'Anonymous' is, IMO, spot on:


"I am fed up with my software doing things I haven't told it to do, that
being one of the reasons I hate most Microsoft software ... but if the
alternative (read Firefox) tries to be as 'smart' as the bad option
(read IE), then there are no alternatives at all.

"I used to like Firefox a lot, back when Firefox was much more simple,
now it is side by side with IE 7: some good things, some bad ones. Only
reason why I'm using Firefox is for development (for the add-ons). As a
user, Chrome and Safari are increasingly becoming way better options, imo."


Users of Firefox (and presumably Thunderbird) for Linux can go into
about:config and set 'toolkit.networkmanager.disable' to 'True', which
instructs Firefox (and TB?) to ignore what the Linux network manager
reports. Users of Firefox (and TB?) for other platforms (Windows,
Macintosh) are SOL.

There are now at least TWO add-on's that address this issue by
"tricking" Firefox into "thinking" that it always has network
connectivity, so that it does not automatically switch into offline mode:

Always On
http://yellosoft.us/index.php?id=88
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8502
(Note: This add-on fails to prevent Firefox from going offline the first
time that network connectivity is lost, but seems to work fine thereafter.)

Stay In Online Mode
http://netticat.ath.cx/StayOnline/StayOnline.htm
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13233

These are for Firefox; I have no idea if there are any such add-on's for
Thunderbird. There is also an add-on to put the on/offline toggle and
mode indicator back on the Firefox status bar, as it was originally in
the Mozilla Comm. Suite:

Work Offline
http://multi.nadenade.com/leafy/Mozilla/Offline/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/493

The necessity of an add-on to substitute for a missing user option is
reminiscent of the days before Netscape Corp. developed an offline mode,
when Netscape Navigator users had to install a shim that would "fool"
Netscape into "thinking" that it had network access.

This is rediculous. What's more, it is totally thoughtless, and seems to
tell the user "We know what is best for you."

I hope that someone among the Mozilla project volunteers will add a
switch to make this behaviour optional. In the mean time, my Firefox
installation bogs down under an increasingly long list of add-on's that 
correct problems, replace removed functionality, and add new 
functionality by means of scripts, kludges, and code snippets, instead 
of by means of optimised code that is integrated into Firefox itself. 
Maybe it's time for me to have another look at Opera, and see if they've 
fixed their once-broken Javascript engine.

Jeff