Are there disadvantages to intercepting click and hover events when menu is open?

Question

When a menu (application menu or context menu) is open some applications intercept all clicks and mouse hover events, while others do not.

For example if you open a website on Chrome (on Ubuntu - I am not sure if the behaviour varies between platforms) and then open the browser's native context menu, you cannot click on any link without first closing the menu, while hovering over links/buttons will not send mouseover events to them while the menu is open. To the contrary, in Firefox you can open a context menu and elements in the background will still receive the "hover" style/signal, and if you open hamburger menu even clicks will work.

Is one of the approach more user-friendly?

Answer 1

If the events are not intercepted, when the user is browsing the menu he or she may trigger some logic of the website accidentally, i.e. hovering over a few pixels nearby the context menu or just misclicking. This may harm the overall experience of the context menu.

On the other hand, such a feature may harm the user experience, since it doesn't allow the user to hover over or click the website content when a context menu is open. Some users may find it more convenient.

It's different in different browsers because different vendors have their views on the browser features and what wins favour of their browsers' users.