Sadly It doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me. About 2 years ago using Firefox Focus on iOS I came across an odd behavior - each time I launched the app it was accessing and reading the device’s clipboard.
I called it out to Mozilla both through the app review and Mozilla support. The only response I got was that it was a feature. That I misunderstood what they were attempting to do. They removed that “feature” in the following version.
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Just a guess, but it could've been a way for them to determine if you were about to paste content into the address bar. I worked for a company that did something similar. It would compare the clipboard to the contents of the input field. If it was a URL and they matched it would assume you had pasted a URL and would take some extra actions based on that.
It wasn't until the OS started alerting the user to this clipboard read that it started to look very suspicious.
I’ll grant you that it’s a possibility. But it’s unsettling when your clipboard has your recently used password.
> It wasn't until the OS started alerting the user to this clipboard read that it started to look very suspicious.
Maybe sprinkle in a bit of users didn't consider it suspicious until it was reported that some apps were abusing the privilege.
In about:config, while it lasts -- if it's even available--, try flipping the bool for:
dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled
To false
Edit: my mental molasses delayed my seeing that the feature was removed and that you've moved on. I'll leave the comment though.
If you had a URL in the clipboard, it would allow you to 1 press open the URL