> While in the normal case the dialog would be auto-dismissed when the current tab loses focus, in this case it doesn't happen.

If auto-dismissal of a dialog isn't happening when tabs are being switched, please provide repro steps. (Unless what you mean is that the tab issuing the dialog just fires off another dialog to regain focus.)

> Also even after switching tabs, the tab with the dialog is able to bring focus back. This can be troublesome and confusing. Probably such dialogs can be discarded when the tab loses focus?

Your concern is that even though alerts are auto-dismissing, the page can just issue another one, and another one, and another one, to force the user back to the tab?

What I want to do is remove the ability for a page to force its own activation by using an alert() or confirm(). (I already removed that ability for prompt().) That is something that I'll need to do an Intent for, and I anticipate a bit of a fight. Discarding these alerts will be contentious.

> If auto-dismissal of a dialog isn't happening ..
It is the latter, the page triggers more dialogs preventing even switching to a different tab.

If the page is not able to gain focus back by issuing another dialog that works too.

So auto-dismissal works, but the page is responding to the dismissal by issuing a new dialog.

The answer right now it to just close such a page. That should work.

The future answer is to remove the ability for a page to force its own activation. If you can think of great arguments for doing that for my Intent let me know :)

Noticed that Firefox uses a setting in the dialog "Allow dialogs from <site> to take you to their tab" in cases where the dialog was triggered on a tab which doesn't have focus.

Yes, and Safari never activates a tab when it pops a dialog. So there's precedent.

I'm in the middle of a different Intent, but I do plan to get to this.

This should be fixed.