1424998 - Search reset Look&Feel is unfair for user installed third party search engine

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Vivien Nicolas (:vingtetun) (:21) - (NOT reading bugmails, needinfo? please)]

Steps to reproduce:
 1. Got a legit custom search engine installed since a long time
 2. Upgrade Firefox to 57

Expected result:
 The search engine is not changed
 
Actual result:
 The browser prompt the user to use Google

When a user has installed previously a third party search engine (with https) on Firefox, it will now be asked (FF 57) to confirm its choice.

The look and feel of the UI is unfair for third party engine:
 1. The most visible part of the UI is the colored button asking to switch to Google
 2. The original search engine is not showned (Qwant for example)
 3. The localisation suggest that the engine is out of date

I understand the rationale behind the decision to ask the user to reset its settings. But it does not sounds right that an unfair prompt is displayed to the user for a legit search engine, like Qwant (and probably others).

The situation does not happen for search engine that are Mozilla partners. 

What is the rationale for such a distinction ?

Comment 2

[Mike Hoye [:mhoye]]

While we fully support user choice, we'd like that to mean "informed, conscious user choices". Unfortunately a number of our users had this choice made for them in some previous version of our product, without their informed consent, by some of the Internet's many bad actors.

While the means by which those settings were hijacked were largely neutralized by the switch to WebExtensions in 57, their effects in the browser preferences remained, and we decided that letting that stand as is wasn't acceptable.

Our rationale in this was that by presenting potentially affected users with this prompt, we could strike a reasonable balance between protecting our users from unwittingly having their search traffic hijacked, while still enabling them to express their preference for their search engine of choice if that was their intention.

Comment 3

[Vivien Nicolas (:vingtetun) (:21) - (NOT reading bugmails, needinfo? please)]

(In reply to Mike Hoye [:mhoye] from comment #2)
> While we fully support user choice, we'd like that to mean "informed,
> conscious user choices". Unfortunately a number of our users had this choice
> made for them in some previous version of our product, without their
> informed consent, by some of the Internet's many bad actors.
> 

I fully understand this part.

> While the means by which those settings were hijacked were largely
> neutralized by the switch to WebExtensions in 57, their effects in the
> browser preferences remained, and we decided that letting that stand as is
> wasn't acceptable.

Makes sense too.

> 
> Our rationale in this was that by presenting potentially affected users with
> this prompt, we could strike a reasonable balance between protecting our
> users from unwittingly having their search traffic hijacked, while still
> enabling them to express their preference for their search engine of choice
> if that was their intention.

I'm not saying I'm against the prompt. Mostly saying that the phrasing and look and feel of the prompt does not really inform the user about what is going on there.

For example the UI ask the user to switch to Google without saying what will be removed exactly.
So it really looks like a 'Accept and Proceed' licence choice where people (like me) usually clicks without even reading it.

So mostly this bug is about, how can we make the UI more informative and less negative in order to let the user do a conscious choice.
Right now the UI sounds like:
"You're eating something bad. Do you want to eat good things ?"
Instead of:
"You're eating chocolate. Do you want to continue eating chocolate or would you prefer to switch to vanilla ?"