I know this one's pedantic, but it has proven so difficult to find an answer that it's beginning to annoy me
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The "StartupNotify" option in the ".desktop" Desktop Entry file is used to provide some form of feedback to the user during an application's startup--usually an animated cursor.
The default installation of Iceweasel responds to the setting in the Desktop Entry file, and stops animating the mouse cursor when the program has loaded.
An installation of Firefox with an identical Desktop Entry file (save for the "Exec" and "StartupWMClass" options, altered accordingly) doesn't obey the "StartupNotify" setting fully. Instead, the mouse cursor is animated until it times-out (presumably after no response from the application to state that it has fully loaded).
Given that Iceweasel is supposed to be Firefox, without the branding, why doesn't it behave in exactly the same way?
Presumably, the Iceweasel binary has been modified to cope better with the "StartupNotify" setting in the Desktop Entry file. Does anyone know what the difference is?
I realise that there are many forum posts that comment on this issue, and several bug reports spanning several years, but no-one seems to know the answer. But someone must have solved it in Iceweasel, because it works!
Many thanks for any relevant suggestions.