In accessiblity settings in Firefox Android, there is a setting called “Zoom on all websites” that supposedly enables “pinch and zoom, even on websites that prevent this gesture.”

On paper, this sounds good; however, in practice there exist a number of web sites (e.g., https://abcnews.go.com/) that still manage to sabotage pinch and zoom, making them impossible for certain people, myself included, to read the content on the site.

First of all, why would they want to do this? It seems like an empty spiteful gesture that profits them in no way and, if anything, prevents people from using their site.

Second, and more importantly, how do they manage to sabotage the effectiveness of this setting, and is there a way around it? A setting in about:config, perhaps?

I did report it on webcompat, but it was closed as not a webcompat issue, since the site also prevents pinch and zoom on other browsers.

Also, this seems like an ADA violation, since they are deliberately restricting accessibility options, but I’m not educated enough in ADA to really know if this is true or not.

It just seems like a really dogshit thing to do.

Edit: I noticed pinch to zoom works in reader mode, once I click into an article.