1558156 - `about:telemetry` is exposed in GeckoView

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Telemetry, defect, P3)

Description

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

While, due to bug 1547331, legacy telemetry is not initialized anymore in GeckoView, we're still exposing about:telemetry, which will show "telemetry enabled" depending on the settings there.

This is confusing, as it won't mention Glean and will mistakenly say that things are on even though the UI in Fenix/RB has Telemetry marked as off.

Should we:

• Change the page to "detect" GeckoView and point to Glean docs?
• Change the page to not say telemetry is enable if TelemetryController.setup was not called?

Comment 1

[Chris H-C :chutten]

It's also not (and cannot be made to be) a complete picture of the data being collected.

I'm for changing it to point to the Glean docs or removing it from the about protocol router entirely. (And raising its absence with Fenix so they know they don't get it "for free" like Firefox Desktop does and will be responsible for providing it if they want it.)

Comment 2

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #1)

It's also not (and cannot be made to be) a complete picture of the data being collected.

I'm for changing it to point to the Glean docs or removing it from the about protocol router entirely. (And raising its absence with Fenix so they know they don't get it "for free" like Firefox Desktop does and will be responsible for providing it if they want it.)

As an engineering tool, there's GleanDebugActivity that provides a way to check if something was recorded. This covers the initial developers and QA people needs.

Comment 3

[Chris H-C :chutten]

For clarity's sake let's reiterate that we asked, and about:telemetry is not required to serve any Data Stewardship purpose or collection policy.

Comment 4

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

Do engineers working on GeckoView currently use it?
That would be good to check back on before disabling it, if there are any use-cases.

Comment 5

[Chris H-C :chutten]

A pity we don't have GeckoView telemetry because we could know exactly how often it's used.

Comment 6

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

(In reply to Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche] from comment #4)

Do engineers working on GeckoView currently use it?
That would be good to check back on before disabling it, if there are any use-cases.

I don't use it and I'm not aware of anyone from the team using it.

Comment 7

[Benjamin De Kosnik [:bdekoz]]

It's relatively hard to use it due to:
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3180

Comment 8

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Benjamin De Kosnik [:bdekoz] from comment #7)

It's relatively hard to use it due to:
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3180

This is exactly my point :) In that issue we can see:

Expected behavior
ping shared, glean metrics or baseline ping not gv main ping, etc

This is not true. Glean metrics are not supposed to be shown there and this is already causing confusion :)

Comment 9

[Chris H-C :chutten]

Eugen, would you happen to know if there's a broader "What should we do about about: pages in GV?" movement happening or planned? (We wouldn't want to design a new GV-only about:telemetry experience if the about protocol router is just going to be disabled)

Comment 10

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #9)

Eugen, would you happen to know if there's a broader "What should we do about about: pages in GV?" movement happening or planned? (We wouldn't want to design a new GV-only about:telemetry experience if the about protocol router is just going to be disabled)

We're planning to support about: pages in some way that is yet to be determined. Exposing about:telemetry is currently not a high priority.
I would hold off designing anything GV-specific until we have a clear plan on how we want to handle it.

Comment 11

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The priority flag is not set for this bug.
:gfritzsche, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 12

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

It seems like this is not urgent currently & we're waiting on more info for GV-specific solutions per comment 10.