1808750 - Send tab to device without opening the browser

Status: NEW

(Fenix :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Christian Sadilek [:csadilek]]

From github: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1523.

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

If you want to share directly to your desktop without having the page load in your mobile browser.

What / Requirements

Implementing Android Direct Share and/or Fennec-style sharing.

IF NOT AVAILABLE on lower API devices show a dialog with the send tab share targets.

Acceptance Criteria (how do I know when I’m done?)

Being able to share directly to a desktop without needing to open it on mobile first.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

Change performed by the Move to Bugzilla add-on.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

As was pointed out in the GitHub ticket, while not technically a regression, the loss of this feature is viewed as a regression by end users because Fennec could already do this, and the feature was lost with the conversion to Fenix.

There are use cases for which there is no workaround in Fenix:

• if the link you need to share is to a page which requires a login to view, Fenix will redirect to the login page when you launch it, and you will no longer have the direct URL to share. Sometimes this persists beyond logging in, as some sites redirect to something else after the permalink regardless, so there may be no way to get to the URL you need to share after opening it. A Mozilla-used site that runs into this: ServiceNow.

Comment 2

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

A common use case for this:

I receive an email which I read on my phone which indicates my assistance is needed on a trouble ticket on a system which requires a login and I don't often access on my phone. I want to view the ticket on my laptop and not on the phone (I need a big screen to use this web site). Instead of tapping the link on my phone, I would tap-and-hold the link, pick Share from the popup menu, and share it to my laptop via Firefox Sync.

I used to follow that exact workflow all the time when I had Fennec as a browser on my phone.

Comment 3

[aaron.hastings11]

For what it's worth, this is still something I miss greatly about previous Firefox for Android releases. Being able to fire a link from an arbitrary app to a desktop Firefox tab was such a great workflow and is not possible today without having multiple unnecessary steps. Thanks.

Comment 4

[justin]

I don't want to just +1 this, but this is quite an important regression to me -- the main thing I use the "send to device" feature from Firefox on Android for is to send tabs to either my work laptop, or personal desktop, and with this regression on mobile (which most links from Reddit for example that I come across) I want to either look into when I have more free time or when I have a bigger screen.

With this experience, the extra clicks make it so that I have to:

• Hit open in the Firefox app
• Wait for the current page to partially load so that the new page loads (consumes extra data which is an issue for some users, especially on media heavy pages)
• Hit share (again) but this time to send to one of my other devices
• Close the tab
• Close the Firefox app
• Reopen the app I was previously in

I know your team is arguing this is an 'enhancement', but really it's a regression since anything user-facing is not about what is "under the hood" but what the users experience. If not a regression, then tech debt of existing features that were removed.

Comment 5

[[:Atemu]]

I just had to send this issue page to my laptop from the email client on my phone and had to go through the same long steps as Justin.

Instead I'd rather just:

1. Share a URL from the app I'm in
2. Tap "(Firefox) Send tab to another device" share target
3. Tap the device I want to send the URL to
4. Automatically return to app I was in

Fennec had a nested menu when you shared to the generic "Firefox target which allowed you to choose whether you want to open the URL in Firefox, bookmark it (IIRC) or send it to another device. This might have been due to legacy roots but nowadays, such a menu isn't necessary anymore because the Android share menu can fulfil the same purpose.
Firefox should simply offer two share targets: One for opening and one for sending.

When sending, Firefox never needs to become the active app, much less load the page (expensive in both data as Justin mentioned and also power). It should only show a device selection popup and then be done.

Comment 6

[Jack]

To add to the user story: This feature is why I still keep Fennec (68.11.0) on my phone (via F-Droid). I use production Fenix as my daily driver, but I use Fennec as the share target to send to my desktop.

Comment 7

[cormacltighe]

I also would like to boost this. It's been an annoyance for years now and it keeps getting ignored. I send tabs to my desktop instance several times a day, and the extra steps involved make it a real pain. I know this probably carries little to no weight, but can this please be given a high priority? It's been years and Fenix still feels like only a downgrade.

Comment 8

[Adam]

Is this being worked on at all? It was requested 4 years ago at this point, over on Github.

Comment 9

[cormacltighe]

It never has been and never will be. They don't care. Still can't even rearrange tabs. Fenix was a mistake.
I can't understand why users don't matter to these people.

Comment 11

[Matt]

Just came here to upvote this feature request. This was one of the most useful features from Fennec.

Why do I need this?

1. it's less clicks if you want to send it to your desktop or any other device.
2. like mentioned above, with redirects you mess around with this link
3. my personal favorite: Firefox is able to open apps when they registered a certain link. But even when I set "ask before open" some links will opened immediatly in the app. So actually this is a bug I guess, but with this pre-selection you had in fennec, this issue would be gone - as this only happens sharing a link to Firefox.
4. you don't have to open firefox, a fast overlay window with devices, open and just create a new tab without opening firefox would be awesome.

I would guess the infrastructure is already there so if you are not into this feature, I would like the downsides. Making it optional would be more awesome of course, but this is just for people who don't like this feature.