1680250 - Set mailto:// default action to "Always Ask"

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Now that we moved to a better UI for mailto:// links (tab modal) we should consider letting users opt into using Firefox for mailto:// links opened inside Firefox. Our current default is to use the OS default (often this triggers opening a competing browser with user information).

Acceptance criteria:

• Change default mailto action from "Use OS default" to "Always Ask"
• Add the following entries in the tab modal UI that cover 67% of e-mail domains used on FxA:
  ---gmail.com (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#compose)
  ---hotmail.com (TBC)
  ---yahoo.com (https://mail.yahoo.com/d/compose)
  ---outlook.com (TBC)
• Move option to open OS default after options to use Webmail services

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

The default handlers (for mailto and other protocols) we propose are locale-specific. Mike and Mike, did we ever figure out who owns making decisions about which providers we bundle?

Comment 2

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #0)

Our current default is to use the OS default (often this triggers opening a competing browser with user information).

Acceptance criteria:

• Change default mailto action from "Use OS default" to "Always Ask"

It's perhaps also worth noting that the default action for any protocol in a clean profile depends on whether there is an OS default application. If there isn't, we ask. If there is, we default to the OS default. I expect we don't want to change this - but perhaps we can/should make an exception if there are web handlers installed...

Comment 3

[Mike Hoye [:mhoye]]

In terms of "who makes this decision", the answer seems to be that this falls under the Preferences module and doesn't need to be escalated up to the TLMC. We have no business deals or contractual arrangements around our email defaults, as evidenced by the fact that we also have no telemetry concerning their settings. We do measure how many times mailto links get clicked - 7.5k in the last three weeks or so in Nightly - but otherwise it looks like our defaults here are so stale that changing them almost certainly won't have any visible negative effects.

So, Gijs, as preferences module peer it looks like it's your call to make if you want it.

Comment 4

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

(In reply to :Gijs (back Jan. 4; he/him) from comment #2)

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #0)

Our current default is to use the OS default (often this triggers opening a competing browser with user information).

Acceptance criteria:

• Change default mailto action from "Use OS default" to "Always Ask"

It's perhaps also worth noting that the default action for any protocol in a clean profile depends on whether there is an OS default application. If there isn't, we ask. If there is, we default to the OS default. I expect we don't want to change this - but perhaps we can/should make an exception if there are web handlers installed...

On Windows there is always a default for mailto:// (the mail application from microsoft), I'm unsure on Linux and mac but I would assume the same. I feel like it's fair to let users make this decision with the option to always use a specific application thereafter to avoid over prompting) since e-mail is a major use case for Firefox and we expect Firefox users would manage their e-mails inside Firefox.
Discovering how to set Firefox to open mailto:// links from within Firefox is such a hard thing to do for a use case that is fairly frequent, this also breaks users flows where a third party application opens without warning - and as you mentioned this also includes oipening third party browsers with user information, without user warning/consent.

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

The relevant code for the default actions is in HandlerService.js, nsExternalHelperAppService.cpp and nsExternalProtocolHandler.cpp . The list of handlers is in browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser-region/region.properties . The changes suggested in comment #0 would require changing the defaults for the alwaysAskBeforeHandling bool, and potentially the preferred action / application handler. Changes to the dialog at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/handling/ContentDispatchChooser.jsm (and the markup files in that dir) may also be necessary. We don't want to change non-mailto results.

For the addition of handlers, we need mailto URL handlers so the links from comment #0 aren't usable. We already have gmail and yahoo ones. For outlook, we can borrow the following from the ukrainian locale file:

gecko.handlerService.schemes.mailto.1.name=Outlook
gecko.handlerService.schemes.mailto.1.uriTemplate=https://outlook.live.com/default.aspx?rru=compose&to=%s

We may want to call it "Outlook Web" or "Hotmail" or similar, to distinguish from a local Outlook application and avoid confusion. This link should work for both hotmail and outlook users.