1857391 - Remove bestMatch.enabled, suggest.bestmatch, and the Top pick checkbox in about:preferences

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, task, P2)

Description

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

bestMatch.enabled and the "Top pick" checkbox in about:preferences (suggest.bestmatch) are left over from the very first best match experiment years ago, when there were only sponsored (adM) and non-sponsored (Wikipedia) Suggest results. These days "best match" isn't a separate feature by itself anymore. Instead it's a UI treatment that some types of Suggest results use.

We should remove all the things related to best-match-as-a-feature:

• bestMatch.enabled pref
• suggest.bestmatch pref
• Best match Nimbus variables
• The "Top pick" checkbox in about:preferences

Suggest results should no longer use these prefs to determine whether they should be best matches. Instead the type of suggestion and relevant product requirements should determine whether a result is a best match.

Comment 1

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Attachment: Bug 1857391 - Remove Firefox Suggest "best match" as its own separate feature.

This removes "best match" as its own separate Firefox Suggest feature. In the
future, whether or not a suggestion is a best match (a.k.a. top pick) will be
determined by relevant product requirements. I've confirmed this with Nive.

Here's a summary of changes:

• Removes prefs and Nimbus variables related to best match
• Removes the "Top pick" checkbox in about:preferences
• Removes support for the best_match quick suggest config property. This
  property was removed from the config in remote settings a while ago.
• Removes legacy telemetry scalars related to best match. These scalars were
  added years ago for the original best match experiment and before we started
  using Glean. In the case of non-sponsored suggestions, the scalars have not
  been recorded at all for some time. In the case of sponsored suggestions, they
  can now be recorded again due to the recent addition of sponsored priority
  suggestions, but they are superseded by Glean.

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/ded906d42b26
Remove Firefox Suggest "best match" as its own separate feature. r=daisuke,settings-reviewers

Comment 3

[Norisz Fay [:noriszfay]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/ded906d42b26

Comment 4

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop QA [:oardelean]]

Verified on Firefox 120.0 and Nightly 121.0a1 on Windows 10, Ubuntu 22, macOS 12 the following:

• browser.urlbar.bestMatch.enabled is no longer present in about:config;
• browser.urlbar.suggest.bestmatch is no longer present in about:config;
• browser.urlbar.bestMatch.blockingEnabled is no longer present in about:config;
• Top Pick checkbox is no longer present in about:preferences;