1882137 - intent URLs should perhaps immediately fall back to S.browser_fallback_url if you tap "Cancel" on the open-external-app dialog

Status: NEW

(Firefox for Android :: App Links, defect)

Description

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Steps to reproduce

1. In Firefox settings, look for "Open links in apps" and choose "Ask before opening"
2. Load this testcase: https://bug1859052.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9358423
3. Tap the link in that testcase.
4. Tap "Cancel" button on the Open in another app dialog.

Expected behavior

Firefox should load https://example.org (the provided S.browser_fallback_url for the link), as the fallback behavior for the link that I tapped.

Actual behavior

Firefox doesn't navigate at all. I'm still left looking at the testcase URL.

Device information

• Firefox version: 125.0a1 (Nighlty)
• Android device model: Pixel 8
• Android OS version: 14

Any additional information?

My "Expected behavior" here is based on what would happen if you simply had "Open links in apps" set to "Never" -- under that configuration, Firefox does reliably end up at example.org when I perform the STR. Put another way: it seems intuitively like "Always ask" should just give the user an opportunity to make a real-time decision between the "Never" behavior and the "Always" behavior -- so if a user taps Cancel on the dialog, they intuitively expect to see the same outcome that they would get, if they had tapped that link in a "Never" configuration.

This prevents Safeway pickup orders from working properly (you essentially can't notify the store that you've arrived), for users with Firefox set as their default browser and who have this "Ask before opening" configuration.

Comment 1

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Side note, partly for my own later reference: I found a description of Chrome's intent-URL-behavior (at least as of 2015) documented in https://paul.kinlan.me/deep-app-linking-on-android-and-chrome/

(We obviously don't match that exactly, since we've got this "Ask before opening" option, which I don't think Chrome has available & hence isn't shown in the flow-charts etc. at that blog post. But as noted at the end of comment 0, I think it makes intuitive sense that the user tapping "Cancel" in the open-external-app dialog should result in the same fallback-behavior as what would happen if the user had selected "Never" up-front in the settings.)

Comment 2

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:royang, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 3

[killercontact1.7.4.0]

Unsure if this is related to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1930302#c7 where "open links in app" is set to "always ask" yet this is the behaviour:
STR

1. Use Aliexpress.com on Fenix (with uBlock Origin)
2. Navigate the site
3. Notice the normal URL changes to aliexpress:// meant to redirect to the app activity
4. There is no confirmation dialog to open in app, nor does the redirect actually happen
5. The aliexpress:// URL stays even when sharing the page or tapping the address bar

Comment 4

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

If I'm understanding your description (with your additional details in bug 1930302 comment 7, in particular that you've got "open links in apps" turned off): comment 3 is just a version of bug 1930302, and is not related to this bug here.