Closed Bug 1160860 Opened 9 years ago Closed 9 years ago

Firefox uses random search engine

Categories

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Search
Version:
37 Branch
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1139655

People

(Reporter: werecatf, Unassigned)

Details

(Keywords: ux-error-prevention) 

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:37.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/37.0
Build ID: 20150415140819

Steps to reproduce:

Press ctrl+l, then tab, then enter search terms and press enter.


Actual results:

I have multiple search engines defined, with Google Search as the default. Firefox randomly uses one of the others without any seemingly good reason. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes it happens multiple times in 10 minutes. Without changing the search query hitting enter in search bar or the arrow to the right then searches with the correct engine.


Expected results:

Firefox should obviously use the default engine unless I have manually selected one of the others or hover my mouse over one of them.
Component: Untriaged → Search
The new Search UX is definitely wrong design.
Blocks: fx34-searchui
Keywords: ux-error-prevention
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
This is very similar to bug 1126816, but we fixed it for Firefox 37. Could also have been related to bug 1140440, but it's also fixed for Firefox 37.
In Nightly I'm having the same problem. Very rare.

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0
Build ID: 20150528030206
It is, indeed, rare. I still have not found any way of reproducing it other than completely randomly. It is very annoying when it happens, though.(In reply to Ray Satiro from comment #4)

> In Nightly I'm having the same problem. Very rare.
> 
> User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101
> Firefox/41.0
> Build ID: 20150528030206
Just to add my experience, it's not limited to randomly choosing a search engine.  Sometimes it brings up the search settings page instead, as if pressing enter to perform a search is randomly selecting one of the widgets in the search popup box.
(In reply to Adam Nielsen from comment #6)
> Just to add my experience, it's not limited to randomly choosing a search
> engine.  Sometimes it brings up the search settings page instead, as if
> pressing enter to perform a search is randomly selecting one of the widgets
> in the search popup box.

That has started to happen to me too recently, just a few hours ago the last time, in fact. It didn't happen to me at first, but since this bug is so random it could just be that I just didn't happen to have the right thing happen at the right time for me to see it.
This happens for me quite often, I certainly wouldn't call it "rare".

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/42.0
Build ID: 201507030204
I think I may have figured it out. I click the search bar and move the mouse away from the field, I start typing and the cursor is hovered over one of the other search engine icons, I press enter and that search engine is used. Maybe there's other ways that this could happen, but this is definitely reproducible.
(In reply to Matt Cosentino from comment #9)
> I think I may have figured it out. I click the search bar and move the mouse
> away from the field, I start typing and the cursor is hovered over one of
> the other search engine icons, I press enter and that search engine is used.
> Maybe there's other ways that this could happen, but this is definitely
> reproducible.

Nope. It happens even when my mouse has not been anywhere near the search field. What you're describing may be related, but it is not the cause here; I never use my mouse to click on any of the fields up top, my mouse resides more-or-less exclusively among the actual content of websites and I still have this happen to me randomly.
Agreed.  I use Ctrl+K to go to the search field and press enter to perform a search, and it still uses a random engine.  Pressing Ctrl+K then Enter again immediately without changing anything else will (so far) always use the correct search engine the second time.
I can reproduce the problem very often. 
Vibrate desk when I press Enter, so, the mouse is shifted 1-2 pixels. 

Firefox requires a desk made of Reinforced Concrete.
Mouse movement over the drop-down panel, including over Change Search Settings, is seen as indicating the user's preference for what happens when the Enter key is pressed. That's logical if the mouse move was intentional, but certainly that is not always true.

I tend to type very fast and submit using Enter, and I do not look for the blue highlight during that time. Perhaps as a result of bumping the mouse, I have accidentally sent health-related and other personal searches to ecommerce and social sites, which I consider a problem from a privacy perspective.

How do we reconcile these scenarios?
This is happening to me all the time in Nightly and Dev Edition. Probably one out of five or six searches.

My mouse isn't even in the search box area when I'm doing my search, as far as I can tell, but I'll keep a closer eye on that.
(In reply to Jefferson from comment #13)
> I tend to type very fast and submit using Enter, and I do not look for the
> blue highlight during that time. Perhaps as a result of bumping the mouse, I
> have accidentally sent health-related and other personal searches to
> ecommerce and social sites, which I consider a problem from a privacy
> perspective.

I think so that the actual design of the search bar has a security risk.
Think this duplicates 1139655 - it's definitely an annoying issue.
Yes, you're right.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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