1704156 - Consider removing in-content search box code

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Search, task, P3)

Description

[Harry Twyford]

As of bug 1699834, handoff is enabled on all versions of Firefox, replacing the in-content search on about:home and about:privatebrowsing. We might want to consider removing in-content search if we have no plans to use it. Bug 1699834 also modified some tests so that they continue to test in-content search. These tests could be removed as well.

Comment 1

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Clarifying title to indicate this is the just the code, not the box on the new tab page.

We should totally do this once this once it is released (89). Whilst I remember, there is probably also some tidy up that can be done around the hand-off code - I think it doesn't need all the messages that are passed (it inherited some from the in-content search box).

Comment 2

[Harry Twyford]

I'm making this depend on bug 1713827. That bug will need the "Search the Web" string that might otherwise be removed in this bug.

Comment 3

[cwbussard]

Very strongly opposed.

I am very of the opinion that urls and search terms should be strictly separated and handled via separate widgets. Attempting to handle them via the same widget just opens up whole classes of privacy leaks and phishing vectors that don't need to exist. It also promotes confusion between urls and search terms among unsophisticated users. Accordingly, the "awesome bar" should not even exist in the first place. If you feel you must absolutely have an "Awesome bar," then handoffToAwesomebar should be under user control and should default to false.

(Yes, I know I'm very late to this party.)

Comment 4

[cohaller]

For reasons already mentioned by cwbussard I also don't support the seperate search bar, despite the fact that some users don't seem to understand the difference between a search term and a webpage address and the combination is convenient for them. Combining both into one appears to me like being allowed to write something as "nearest grocery store" on the envelope of a letter if you don't know the address of the store. That being said, I do like some of the address bar intelligence, mainly not having to type the "https://" or "http://" and the autocompletion of the most common top level domains (if one is missing at all).
Concidering the handling of search terms, I really think the feature should still not be turned on by default. - But this is just my opinion on the subject, it might appear outdated to others.

Additional note:
The confusion for unsophisticatet users seems to be caused partly because correctly entered addresses can end up in a search result instead of the existing webpage being loaded. - I noticed that behaviour several times when supporting users. This may happen on mobile devices but also on desktop browsers depending on the specific circumstances - probably because the search results can be prioritized over other entries (appear above them) and the user just hitting enter instead of selecting the correct item. On an Android device of someone I even witnessed a website being not accessible at all just because Google search interfered and the newly created website had not been indexed by Google at that time!

My conclusion:
Using the address bar for search terms should rather be considered as a bug instead of as a feature.

Comment 5

[cohaller]

(In reply to cohaller from comment #4)

... I also don't support the seperate search bar,...

Correction: ... I also don't support removing the seperate search bar, ...

Comment 6

[Jay]

When I start typing into one box and my input appear in another box, that is insane behavior that no other software application does. The handoff feature should be removed entirely.

I also agree with cwbussard above. As a developer, I frequently search for terms with a dot in them. 1% of the time I need to select a different option and it makes me unhappy every single time.

Thankfully handoffToAwesomebar=false exists, but it doesn't work in private windows so now I have different behavior in private vs. regular windows. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1713338#c3

Between this and proton, I'm sticking with version 90. You guys wonder why you keep losing users, it's because you keep making decisions like this and removing user choice. https://news.itsfoss.com/firefox-decline/

Comment 7

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Bug 1727319 was cleaning up the styles on new tab, but it was made a bit more complicated needing to consider that this in-content search behavior is still available via about:config toggle.