1499095 - Adding a search engine that was removed by the policies.json remains even after restarting Firefox

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, defect, P4)

Description

[Emil Ghitta, QA [:emilghitta]]

[Affected versions]:
Firefox 64.0a1 
Firefox 63.0b14
Firefox 62.0.3
Firefox 60.2.2 esr

[Affected platforms]:
Windows 10 64bit.
macOS 10.13.6
Ubuntu 16.04 64bit.

[Preconditions]
Add the following code inside the policies.json file:

{
"policies": {
	"SearchEngines": {
		"Remove": ["Google"]
}
}
}

[Steps to reproduce]:
1. Launch Firefox.
2. Access the about:preferences#search page.
3. Click the "Restore Default Search Engines" button.
4. Restart Firefox.

[Expected result]:
"Google" search engine is no displayed.

[Actual result]:
"Google" search engine is displayed (since this is a runOnce policy). 

I think that we could add the same behavior as in Bug 1498223 for this policy as well.

Comment 1

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Ideally we wouldn't have any runOnce policies, but they are a compromise to some things that are harder/not worth to do on every startup.

The built-in engines can't really be removed and it causes this trouble with the Restore button. A non built-in engine wouldn't suffer from this.

This could be worked around similarly as in bug 1498223 but it's not something that I think we should spend time at the moment.