1552302 - Make notice in about:preferences about policies in use link to about:policies

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, enhancement, P5)

Description

[[:philipp]]

since the use of policies is getting more common also outside the enterprise environment, like security software using it to inject certificates, affected people are noticing the "Your organization has disabled the ability to change some options" banner as not having a particular relation to their situation. [1]

i think it might be beneficial if the message was linking to about:policies, so users can review what options in particular are outside of their control and in some cases they'll also be able to find out what's the source of the problem this way.

[1] some recent samples from support channels:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1257886
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bhut39/weird_message_appearing_on_options_section/
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bpgfv6/your_organization_has_disabled_the_ability_to/

Comment 1

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: First pass

This will depend on the change bug 1508752. I'll try to get them both done for 68.

Comment 2

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Bug 1552302 - Link policy message to about:policies.

Comment 3

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/b70f5f87bd30
Link policy message to about:policies. r=Gijs

Comment 4

[Bogdan Tara[:bogdan_tara]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/b70f5f87bd30

Comment 5

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment on attachment 9066546 [details]
Bug 1552302 - Link policy message to about:policies.

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: We are starting to get SUMO questions about why this message is in prefs (especially since it's now caused by some antivirus). We changed the message to be more generic. Linking directly to the about:policies will make it easier for users (and support) to see what's affected on the user's machine.
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: No
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: No
• Needs manual test from QE?: Yes
• If yes, steps to reproduce: Add an empty policies file in distribution:

{"policies": {}}

Go to about:preferences and verify message at the top can be clicked.

• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): No code change, just adds link to XML.
• String changes made/needed:

Comment 6

[Rares Doghi]

Hi, I managed to reproduce this issue in older versions of Firefox but now in Firefox 69.0a1 (2019-05-24) the Link is properly displayed and the text now redirects to about:policies. I will mark this issue accordingly. This issue was tested on Windows 10, Mac OSX as well as Ubuntu.

Comment 7

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Comment on attachment 9066546 [details]
Bug 1552302 - Link policy message to about:policies.

approved for 68.0b5, thanks

Comment 8

[Oana Pop-Rus]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/0fa8984d53a3

Comment 9

[Rares Doghi]

This issue is verified as fixed in 68.0b5.