1544372 - [remote-dbg-next] about:debugging lists search webextensions by default

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(DevTools :: about:debugging, enhancement, P1)

Description

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

about:debugging is now listing all "search" providers as webextensions.

STRs:

• open about:debugging
• select This Nightly / This Firefox

ER: Only (mostly) user installed extensions should be displayed
AR: Extensions category is polluted with all the "search" webextensions (google, bing, duckduckgo etc)

If possible, we should filter them out, behind a pref.
Similar to what is done for system addons:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/search?q=devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons&path=
(behind devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons)

Comment 1

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: image.png

Comment 2

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Hi Dale!

You implemented converting the builtin search to webextensions in Bug 1486820. We would like to filter them out by default from about:debugging, since they will most likely be irrelevant to our users. Do you have any suggestion on which field we could use to perform the filtering?

All extensions seem to have an id ending with @search.mozilla.org so that could be an idea. I also see that they are all defined with hidden: true. Maybe we should simply hide such extensions by default?

Comment 3

[Dale Harvey (:daleharvey)]

Hey Julian, CC'ing Shane who fixed this recently for about:addons as well in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1543204, I do think that you want to use the addon.hidden property to filter out these and potentially other addons.

Comment 4

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1544372 - part1: sort webextension actor objects alphabetically (tidying)

Comment 5

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1544372 - part2: filter out hidden webextensions by default in about:debugging

Depends on D28629
Follows exactly the same pattern as showSystemAddons. Enabled by default for local builds, disabled otherwise.

Comment 6

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1544372 - part3: update mochitest to check hidden webextension visibility in about:debugging

Depends on D28630

Comment 7

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Harald, can you confirm you're ok with this from a product perspective:

• hide "hidden" webextensions by default in about:debugging
• users can toggle devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons to show them (need to reload about:debugging)

This is exactly what we do for system addons.
Follow up tasks: make sure this is documented (dev-doc-needed) and maybe a follow up bug to surface a filter UI in about:debugging if we feel like it might be useful.

Comment 8

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

SGTM. Should we use the same pref that also enabled listing system addons or are there meaningful differences between them?

Comment 9

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Shane, during the review we realized all system addons seem to have hidden set to true as well. Can we just rely on hidden to filter out system addons and "hidden" extensions or is it possible to have a system addon that has hidden set to false?

Thanks!

(In reply to :Harald Kirschner :digitarald from comment #8)

SGTM. Should we use the same pref that also enabled listing system addons or are there meaningful differences between them?

It looks increasingly like we should use only one pref to hide both.

Comment 10

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Hi Irene! We are slightly modifying a behavior currently documented on MDN at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/about:debugging#Opening_the_aboutdebugging_page

Whether or not system add-ons appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

In Firefox 68, the preference will be renamed devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons. The behavior for the old about:debugging remains the same. For the new about:debugging however this preference will now toggle the visibility of both "System addons" and "hidden" webextensions. We can't really expect regular users to know what both of those concepts are so maybe we should call them "internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions)". Maybe the extensions team has coined a better term for them?

Comment 11

[Irene Smith]

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #10)

Hi Irene! We are slightly modifying a behavior currently documented on MDN at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/about:debugging#Opening_the_aboutdebugging_page

Whether or not system add-ons appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

In Firefox 68, the preference will be renamed devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons. The behavior for the old about:debugging remains the same. For the new about:debugging however this preference will now toggle the visibility of both "System addons" and "hidden" webextensions. We can't really expect regular users to know what both of those concepts are so maybe we should call them "internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions)". Maybe the extensions team has coined a better term for them?

I have created an issue in MDN/Sprints - Sprints #1392

And will make the changes in the next sprint which begins on 6 May 2019.

Irene

Comment 12

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/c33e07c9d821
part1: sort webextension actor objects alphabetically (tidying) r=Ola
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/26048370172d
part2: filter out hidden webextensions by default in about:debugging r=daisuke,Ola
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/836d02c18692
part3: update mochitest to check hidden webextension visibility in about:debugging r=Ola,daisuke

Comment 13

[Arthur Iakab [arthur_iakab]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c33e07c9d821
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/26048370172d
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/836d02c18692

Comment 14

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #9)

Shane, during the review we realized all system addons seem to have hidden set to true as well. Can we just rely on hidden to filter out system addons and "hidden" extensions or is it possible to have a system addon that has hidden set to false?

IMO It's useful to see these in about:debugging, but preferably in a separate section to themselves.

Comment 15

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Ok thanks, I filed Bug 1544372

Comment 16

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #15)

Ok thanks, I filed Bug 1544372

That points to this bug.

You probably meant to write bug 1548464

Comment 17

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Thanks, clipboard + morning :)

Comment 18

[Hani Yacoub, Desktop QA]

Verified as fixed on Firefox Nightly 68.0a1 (2019-05-19) on Windows 10 x 64, Mac OS X 10.14 and on Ubuntu 18.04 x64.

Comment 19

[Irene Smith]

Added this note to the release notes using the language suggested in Comment 10:

The preference that controls the visibility of internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions) on the about:debugging page has been changed from devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons to devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons (bug 1544372).

And used the following language to describe that on the about:debugging documentation page:

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I did not mention the change here because if they are on this page for the current version of about:debugging, then they don't nee/probably won't care about the old name. But if you think I should mention it, I will.

Comment 20

[Irene Smith]

Sorry, forgot to add a need-info to ask you to review my changes.

Comment 21

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Thanks Irene, I think this looks good, just one minor comment on

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I think we might just want to settle on "internal extensions" rather than system add-ons or system extensions. System add-ons are just a specific subset of the extensions that get hidden if this preference is set to false. Not necessarily important to fix it for the current about:debugging documentation, but we should keep it in mind when writing the documentation for the new about:debugging.

Comment 22

[Irene Smith]

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #21)

Thanks Irene, I think this looks good, just one minor comment on

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I think we might just want to settle on "internal extensions" rather than system add-ons or system extensions. System add-ons are just a specific subset of the extensions that get hidden if this preference is set to false. Not necessarily important to fix it for the current about:debugging documentation, but we should keep it in mind when writing the documentation for the new about:debugging.

You're right! Thanks for catching my error. This is the new paragraph:

Whether or not internal extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see these extensions, navigate to about:config and make sure that the preference is set to true.

Comment 23

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Looks good, thanks!