The workaround is to click somewhere on the page outside the text box, then click back in. You can then type. I've reported this bug, but it got written off to "something to do with Plura". It's REALLY annoying though, I agree.

My work around is to click on the toolbar (I'm using a Vista) and click back in internet window.

This is Plura's fault. It runs in the background. Go here:
http://webdiplomacy.net/faq.php
and scroll to the very bottom to Plura and opt-out of it.

Hmm. Hadn't noticed that, thanks! But it's still annoying when every six words I have to click out.

To see if plura is on, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and see if there is a big Plura logo.

As I said, disabling it should quickly solve your problem.

@Abg; Thank you!!! :D

I'd be more than willing to keep it enabled to help the site if it didn't have such a problem with firefox. Btw IE is falling below 50% and with the EU forcing them to offer other options in Europe it's only a matter of time!

Agreed. We had a thread on this a few days back, and I posted a link to the plura applet itself.
Once you've found that you can load the applet in its own tab if&when you have time/system resources

Wait, could I get that link again. I have a box that doesn't do much I can run it on 24/7; I just don't want it popping up every time I play.

Does anyone know:-

Why does Firefox have such a problem with Plura?

Do any other web browsers even run Plura?

If so, do any of them have a problem with it too?

Has anyone raised this issue with Mozilla?

P.S. I get the problem on my (old/slow) laptop, but not on my desktop. I use NoScript to block Plura (and most other scripts) on my laptop.

In the other thread someone said Chrome didn't have this problem with Plura. So there is a non-IE option.

@Abge:
Turn plura on; View source code; Copy link to plura frame:

http://pluraserver.com/?affiliate=a1653b46-efe9-ac95-d977-121844725f45&cpu=0.7

I have had this problem for ages with firefox(it was talk about on the forums months ago) . But it is too late for my darling firefox, Firefox has (since about 2 months ago) been freezing my computer, keyboard too! it has to do with a Flash issue as far as I can tell so I have migrated to Chrome and I have to say I like it. It is similar to Google search page- no fuss, minimalist, clean:)

Check the FAQ to get the info on what Plura is about. Last time this thread came up a week or so ago I wrote to them linking them to it, and suggesting some possible ideas for how they could work around the issue, because even if they were only interested in money and not ruining someone's browsing experience it's money they're losing by having people opt-out / leave out of annoyance.

Although Plura is definitely the lesser of two evils I am hoping to get rid of it permanently in the next few months, once I'm no longer on a student budget.

Also I did investigate it a while ago to try and figure out a way to resolve it on this end, by taking back focus, but IIRC you can't really take back focus from an iframe, and even if you can you can't record where you last had focus to get it back to where it was (and you'll have skipped a few letters in that time anyway).

(Oh and "inb4" crazy ideas for logging where focus was so it can be restored by capturing events on everything, then worrying about browser differences and delays urgh :-P)

crazy, i must have been ignoring plura for many dayswithout noticing...

i mean i think i disabled it over a year ago ago and everything runs fine.

I'm not sure i was able to re-enable it when i looked.

On the other hand Donate! I know kestas actually puts a lot of time into this site already, i don't see why he should also put in any signifigant amount of money when we each enjoy the fruits of his labour.

Is it moral to run plura on a university machine?
Heh, wonder what would happen if I tried to run it on the server!

If people are having problems with FF after disabling Plura, I've noticed that FF seems to have some serious memory leaks in Win7x64. It may be fixed now, but that's why I initially switched to Chrome.

To my understanding the FF issue was more that it doesn't close down

grr, bad time for it to post on me!

To my understanding, the FF issue was that it doesn't close down plugins it's used, keeping them ready incase you want them again. As such it would be an unwanted feature, but certainly acted like a memory leak?