1683895 - Cookie strings in about:preferences are not simplified

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, defect, P3)

Description

[Hani Yacoub, Desktop QA]

Preconditions

The following prefs are set in about:config:

browser.contentblocking.state-partitioning.mvp.ui.enabled = true
network.cookie.cookieBehavior to 5

Affected versions

Firefox 85.0b4

Affected platforms

MacOS 10.15
Windows 10 x64

Steps to reproduce

1. Navigate to about:preferences#privacy
2. Check "Standard" section from about:preferences#privacy.
3. Click on "Strict" section from about:preferences#privacy.
4. Click on "Custom" section from about:preferences#privacy.

Expected result

For step 2:
"Cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate remaining cookies" should updated to "Cross-site cookies".
For Step 3:
"Cross-site tracking cookies" should be updated to "Cross-site cookies".
For Step 4:
"Cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate remaining cookies" should be updated to "Cross-site cookies - includes social media cookies".
"Cross-site and social media trackers" should be updated to "Cross-site tracking cookies - includes social media cookies".

Actual Result

For Step 2:
"Cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate remaining cookies" is updated to "Cross-site tracking cookies" instead of "Cross-Site cookies".
For Step 3:
"Cross-site tracking cookies" is still displayed instead of "Cross-site cookies".
For step 4:
"Cross-site cookies - includes social media cookies" is not displayed.

Note

• We tried adding cookieBehavior5 in browser.contentblocking.features.strict pref. The only thing changed was “Cross-site cookies” string was correctly displayed in strict mode.
• We tried also creating user.js file in profile and adding pref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5)
  and also using this command in browser console:
  Services.prefs.getDefaultBranch("").setIntPref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5);
  The results here were reflected on the standard mode -> Cross-site cookies is displayed instead of Cross-site tracking cookies

Severity-Suggestion

S2

Comment 1

[Johann Hofmann [:johannh]]

Paul, can you try to reproduce this?

Comment 2

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

I can reproduce this. It's because we update the UI according to the default pref value, not the user defined one (via about:config). When I flip the prefs in firefox.js and rebuild it works as expected. That's also why it doesn't reproduce in Nightly, where cookieBehavior defaults to 5.
Johann, can you confirm that this is intended behavior? In that case we can close the bug.

Comment 3

[(inactive) Nihanth Subramanya [:nhnt11]]

That's intentional, when we flip the prefs they will be flipped on the default branch. Basically this means that the new strings will show up when we change the defaults, not when users change their settings.

Comment 4

[Johann Hofmann [:johannh]]

Thanks both for looking into it, closing as invalid, I just want to make sure I read this comment correctly:

Services.prefs.getDefaultBranch("").setIntPref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5);
The results here were reflected on the standard mode -> Cross-site cookies is displayed instead of Cross-site tracking cookies

Are you saying that doing this fixed the issue? That should be the case. You can test the UI like this in the future :)

Thanks!

Comment 5

[Hani Yacoub, Desktop QA]

By added the prefs below in user.js they only update the text in "Custom" mode.
user_pref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5);
user_pref("browser.contentblocking.state-partitioning.mvp.ui.enabled", true);

By adding "Services.prefs.getDefaultBranch("").setIntPref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5);" in browser console it only update "Standard" mode.

I'm still not sure how to update the text for "Strict" mode and if doing the changes mentioned before is accurate to validate "Custom" and "Standard" mode?

Thanks.

Comment 6

[Johann Hofmann [:johannh]]

I'm not 100% sure what should update what. Nihanth, can you answer this?

Comment 7

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

I think we missed the browser.contentblocking.features.strict pref which also controls the strict mode preferences UI.

Here is how you can set the prefs to get the expected UI state:

Services.prefs.getDefaultBranch("").setIntPref("network.cookie.cookieBehavior", 5);
Services.prefs.setStringPref("browser.contentblocking.features.strict", "tp,tpPrivate,cookieBehavior5,cm,fp,stp,lvl2");
Services.prefs.setBoolPref("browser.contentblocking.state-partitioning.mvp.ui.enabled", true)

I wasn't involved in this specific QA process, so I'll leave this for Johann or Nihanth to confirm.

Comment 8

[Hani Yacoub, Desktop QA]

I confirm that after added the prefs in Browser Console all the strings are correctly updated in about:preferences#privacy.

Comment 9

[(inactive) Nihanth Subramanya [:nhnt11]]

Paul was right in comment 7. Sorry for the delay in responding here :(