1329874 - Ability to offer help to users who failed in setting Firefox as default

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

Vendors of Chinese Trident/Blink dual-engine browsers often have their own  "security" softwares, which defaults to lock their own browser as the default browser.

On Win 7 and before, we can detect this by waiting for the exit of helper.exe and checking the default browser status then. We then prompt the user to offer a guide on how to unlock the setting in various 3rd party softwares[1]

We didn't figure out how to do this properly on Win 8 and above. But doing this for Win 7 and before alone has stopped the rapid declining of the ratio of Firefox as user's default, it stablized around 40%[2], lower than the global 60%[3].

Win 7 population is still strong in China[4], and we'd like to keep this feature.

[1]: http://www.firefox.com.cn/help/default-browser/
[2]: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/2056#3723
[3]: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/2056#3721
[4]: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/1423#2525

Comment 1

[Andy McKay]

What API are you proposing WebExtensions should have?

Comment 2

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

This also would not be appropriate for a webextensions api, I think it needs to be a system addon.

Comment 3

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

This doesn't sound like something that is in an extension. Where is the code that does this?

Comment 4

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #3)
> This doesn't sound like something that is in an extension. Where is the code
> that does this?

https://dxr.mozilla.org/addons/source/addons/647194/chrome.manifest#102
https://dxr.mozilla.org/addons/source/addons/647194/components/nsShellServiceStartup.js
https://dxr.mozilla.org/addons/source/addons/647194/components/nsShellService.js
https://dxr.mozilla.org/addons/source/addons/647194/tracking/modules/getExitCode.js

Comment 5

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Interesting. Yes, I guess this will need to be a system add-on.

But at this point, we don't have a way for distributions to contain system add-ons (and I'm nervous about adding that feature for fear of abuse).

We might have to invent a way for mozilla only distributions to package system addons as part of the Firefox bundle...

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Matt:

Thought you would be interested in what China is doing here. Aren't we already working on default browser hijacking solutions?

Comment 7

[Matt Grimes [:Matt_G]]

We've been focused on search, homepage, and toolbar hijacking so far. This seems like a big problem though. Do we know how wide spread this type of trickery is in other markets? We're happy to help here. This could be an easy experiment to test user response to the feature.

Comment 8

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

(In reply to Matt Grimes [:Matt_G] from comment #7)
> We've been focused on search, homepage, and toolbar hijacking so far.

Bug 1329868 describes one measure taken by Beijing office to fight the hijacking of startpage, maybe you'll be interested. It's only the symptom, but we're hoping it'll disincentivize the hijackers.

> This seems like a big problem though. Do we know how wide spread this type of trickery is in other markets?

I've no idea, maybe the ratios of Fx as default browser in different regions could be a start.

> We're happy to help here. This could be an easy experiment to test user response to the feature.

Eventually upstreaming such changes into vanilla Fx would be great. How could we get this experiment started?

(In reply to Hector Zhao [:hectorz] from comment #0)
> ... doing　this for Win 7 and before alone has stopped the rapid declining of the ratio　of Firefox as user's default, it stablized around 40%, lower than the　global 60%.

I checked our data again, and this doesn't work as well as I remembered. We were able to help hundreds of users every day, and the decline did stop for a while after the initial rollout of this. But the latest trend still goes downward in China.

Comment 9

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

(In reply to Hector Zhao [:hectorz] from comment #8)
> (In reply to Matt Grimes [:Matt_G] from comment #7)
> 
> > This seems like a big problem though. Do we know how wide spread this type of trickery is in other markets?
> 
> I've no idea, maybe the ratios of Fx as default browser in different regions
> could be a start.

FYI, my initial attempt: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/3769#7461

Comment 10

[:shell escalante]

priority set with Hector - because it cuts off firefox being set as default when the user tries.

Comment 11

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

> I checked our data again, and this doesn't work as well as I remembered. We were able to help hundreds of users every day, and the decline did stop for a while after the initial rollout of this. But the latest trend still goes downward in China.

We've found in the US that default browser isn't that important because most users just start the browser from the icon (especially on the task bar)

Are there unique situationa in China where the browser is getting launched more often from other applications?

Comment 12

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

One more thought. You seem to only be handling the helper.exe case (install).

That doesn't seem like it would be the most common case. Wouldn't it make more sense to handle this when the browser trys to set the default engine?

Comment 13

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

Below are my replies in the Vidyo call:

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #11)
> 
> We've found in the US that default browser isn't that important because most
> users just start the browser from the icon (especially on the task bar)
> 
> Are there unique situationa in China where the browser is getting launched
> more often from other applications?

We don't have numbers about this. We started working on this due to the low percentage/rapid decline of users with Fx as default browser. [1]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #12)
> One more thought. You seem to only be handling the helper.exe case (install).
> 
> That doesn't seem like it would be the most common case. Wouldn't it make
> more sense to handle this when the browser trys to set the default engine?

helper.exe is also called when setting Fx as default browser from about:preferences etc. It takes care of everything on Win7, while an OS dialog is necessary on Win8+. [2]

[1]: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/3769#9120
[2]: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a9d372645a32/browser/components/shell/nsWindowsShellService.cpp#431

Comment 14

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Do you primarily want this in preferences? Or anywhere the ask happens?

Comment 15

[Hector Zhao [:hectorz]]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #14)
> Do you primarily want this in preferences? Or anywhere the ask happens?

Anywhere.