1396336 - `extensions.pocket.enabled` = false does not turn off "Recommended by Pocket" on New Tab page

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[andrewpbelt]

Attachment: extensions.pocket.* settings

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0
Build ID: 20170825011442

Steps to reproduce:

Set all `extensions.pocket.*` parameters to either false or a blank string. (See screenshot.)


Actual results:

With or without restarting Firefox, the New Tab page displays a gear icon. When clicking the gear icon, the "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox exists. When upgrading from 55 to 56 with the Pocket extension disabled in the above way, Pocket recommendation news adverts are displayed on the New Tab page until the user unchecks the "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox.


Expected results:

The "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox should be effectively disabled and not shown.

Comment 1

[andrewpbelt]

Further experimentation shows that after restarting Firefox with the above `extensions.pocket.*` settings, the first New Tab page opened correctly does not show the "Recommended by Pocket" checkbox. But the second and all successive New Tab pages show the checkbox. There seems to be a difference in the New Tab page types. The first page shows a larger gear icon with a rounded rectangle modal when clicked. The second page shows a smaller gear with a docked rectangle sidebar when clicked.

Comment 2

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Thank you for reporting the issue!

I noticed that you reported it on 56 beta. Can you verify if it's fixed on 57 nightly (I'm on Nightly and cannot reproduce it).

Comment 3

[andrewpbelt]

Yes, the checkbox on the New Tab page is still present on 57.0a1. Additionally, all addons are (automatically) disabled on 57, so interference from addons is ruled out.

Comment 4

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Thank you for the update.

:kohei triaged the bug into Activity Streams: Newtab behavior. The team may be a little bit less active on the weekend, but the next step is for someone from the project to look into your submission.

You'll receive updates from this bug via email.

Comment 5

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

You can turn off the recommendations from the new tab page preferences. I would think `extensions.pocket.enabled` is to turn off the extension. That extension doesn't control any behavior on the new tab page.

Comment 6

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

From https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/issues/3116
> Thanks for your feedback! The product team has decided that these two are pretty independent of one another. We're still working on a way to best integrate Pocket with Activity Stream. Let's close this for now, and we can re-open if the product team decides to tie these two features together in the future

Comment 7

[Ryan]

I know this is closed, but I wanted to add that I also was confused by this behavior.  When setting extensions.pocket.enabled=false, I expected all Pocket-related functionality to stop, period.  In particular, I was concerned that Firefox is still making web requests to getpocket.com even with extensions.pocket.enabled=false.

I understand from the conversation here that the pocket Extension is distinct from the (presumably more directly integrated) pocket behavior on the New Tab page, as well as the getpocket.com requests that are still being made from my browser.  Is there an about:config parameter I can use to disable these, too?  I didn't see one with the word "pocket" in it.

I was going to make a new bug for this but saw this and a couple other tickets already created.  Since this one is already closed, I could still make a new one if that's helpful.

Best,
Ryan

Comment 8

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

What would you put in a new bug? There's preferences on the new tab page.

Comment 9

[Ryan]

Ahh, I see, so if I click the Gear to open up New Tab Preferences and then Uncheck Pocket, then that will completely disable it?  Thanks Ed, I'll try that and see if there are still requests to getpocket.com.

Regards,
Ryan

Comment 10

[paul]

If setting `extensions.pocket.enabled` to false isn't the right way to disable pocket, could this documentation be updated: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox

As it stands it seems like firefox is recommending people do something that doesn't work.