# Browser woes. Please help! (Firefox) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906 "2008-09-03T22:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906/1 "2008-09-03T22:09:00Z")
I recently performed and XP reinstall on my prime computer and I’m having a couple of issues while browsing. I have XP SP2 and am using Firefox 3.0.1. First, and most annoying, is that I get some odd little squares with the letters FFFD. I can’t see a rhyme or reason as to when they show up. I see them frequently in ASCII drawings on message boards, but [here’s an example.](http://papadrugio.smugmug.com/photos/365083183_bU5DL-O.jpg) Second, every time I click a link in a PDF or Yahoo messenger, it opens up explorer instead of Firefox. I’ve triple checked that FF is my default browser. I had neither of these issues prior to my nuking and rebuilding and I’m at a loss. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906/2 "2008-09-04T23:47:18Z")
Bump. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906/3 "2008-09-04T23:57:38Z")
FWIW, the “FFFD” thing is apparently the Unicode “replacement character” or some such. [Linky](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/fffd/index.htm). I saw it on something just today, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906/4 "2008-09-05T00:55:40Z")
Every browser uses a default character encoding set to encode/decode text. Click on tools \> options \> content and in the area for “Fonts” click on “Advanced”. What is “Default Character Encoding” set to? On mine its “Western-ISO 8859” and it works for me just fine. It is possible that the setting is already there and that the page was encoded with something different. You could try changing that setting but it would probably screw up the majority of other web site you visit, so be careful. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-woes-please-help-firefox/461906/5 "2008-09-05T15:41:32Z")
I think that’s the right track, I just can’t do anything about it. When I visit pages with that problem, the character encoding gets set to Unicode (UTF-8) and no matter what I do, I can’t stop it. I tried playing with the settings, but it just won’t use Western on sites with those FFCD boxes. Anyhow, any ideas on the link problems in my messenger programs?