Consider removing the browser.urlbar.resultGroups pref
Categories
(Firefox :: Address Bar, task, P3)
Tracking
()
| Tracking | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| firefox111 | --- | fixed |
People
(Reporter: adw, Assigned: daisuke)
References
Details
Attachments
(1 file)
We should consider removing the browser.urlbar.resultGroups pref.
The only reason for it these days is to let us run hypothetical pref-flip experiments on result groups, unless I'm forgetting something. We don't even define a default value for it (i.e., in firefox.js), which can lead to edge case problems WRT to Normandy according to mythmon.
Our experiments in the recent past have all required deeper changes than moving/adding groups, and I'm not aware of any that are planned that could be done only by modifying the pref. We did use the pref years ago for the experiment that showed search suggestions ahead of bookmarks/history, so it's not inconceivable. But even if we needed a pref for experiments specifically, we could always add one instead of maintaining this one indefinitely, and there wouldn't be any need to write to it like we do now.
Regarding the search-suggestions-first use case specifically, now we have a separate showSearchSuggestionsFirst pref, so we don't need resultGroups for that anymore.
The main downside to keeping it around is that we need a migration each time we modify groups. With each migration we build the groups from scratch again, so there's no guarantee that custom groups will persist for any length of time, which is kind of the other main point of keeping a value in a pref.
A much smaller downside is that we need to parse the JSON, but that's only the first time it's read, so that's not a big deal.
|
||
Comment 1•3 years ago
|
||
The only experiment that comes to my mind would be to show adaptive results before search suggestions, but I'm not sure we'd need a pref for that ather than just hardcoding the experiment behind its own pref.
|
Assignee | |
Updated•1 year ago
|
|
|
Assignee | |
Comment 2•1 year ago
|
||
Pushed by dakatsuka.birchill@mozilla.com: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/29c451abb74b Remove browser.urlbar.resultGroups pref. r=adw
|
||
Comment 4•1 year ago
|
||
| bugherder | ||
Description
•