1663144 - Not all set default top-sites from enterprise policies are reflected into the browser

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, defect)

Description

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

[Suggested Severity:]

I'm not sure how used are the topsites default policies, but I'd reckon that a correct suggestion would be an S3.

[Description:]

The hardcoded or RemoteSettings controlled (bug 1653929) default topsites can be overwritten by policy.
Depending on the topsites string set in the policy, the browser default expected top-sites vary.

[Environment:]

5. tested with 78.2.0esr, 78.0.1 , 80.0.1, 81.0b6, 82.0a1 2020-09-03 on Windows 10
6. tested with 81.0b6, 82.0a1 2020-09-03 on Windows 10

[Steps:]

1. Download && Install Firefox.
2. Open the installation folder and create a folder distribution.
3. Inside the distribution folder create a file policies.json
   4.1 Edit and save adding the following inside the policies.json:
   { "policies": { "Preferences": { "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.default.sites": "https://example.com,https://wikipedia.org,https://google.com,https://bananarama.com" } } }
   4.2 Edit and save adding the following inside the policies.json:
   { "policies": { "Preferences": { "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.default.sites": "https://example.com,https://example.org" } } }
4. Open firefox with a profile that has user_pref("browser.topsites.useRemoteSetting", false);
5. Open firefox with a profile that has user_pref("browser.topsites.useRemoteSetting", true);

[Actual Result:]

5. browser.topsites.useRemoteSetting false or N/A

   4.1 example.com, wikipedia.org, bananarama.com (google missing)
   4.2 example.com (example.org missing)

6. browser.topsites.useRemoteSetting true

   4.1 example.com, wikipedia.org, google.com, bananarama.com 
   4.2 example.com (example.org missing)
   

[Expected Result:]

Imo, we should respect fully the overwrite default values from the policy.

[Note:]

1. If to the above STR, you add user_pref("browser.search.region", "US"), then to the results in the case browser.topsites.useRemoteSetting false an amazon pinned tile gets added.
2. Tentative blocking bug 1653929 to figure out if there's anything actionable for the Remote Settings move.

Comment 1

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I think this is working as designed by the Top sites team. Because top sites only shows foo for foo.com, it can't show foo.com and foo.org.

and as far as google.com goes, it won't put search sites as top sites.

This hasn't been an issue in the field, and I don't think it's worth pushing on the new tab team. It's just the way it was designed. I can update the docs.

Comment 2

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

I agree, I don't think we need to change anything here.

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

mkaply, would you please update the docs?

Comment 4

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I've updated my policy docs to reflect this.