1912565 - Ads Break Firefox Suggest

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect, P1)

Description

[MarjaE]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:129.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/129.0

Steps to reproduce:

Try to use Firefox Suggest to hoose the site I want to visit.

Actual results:

Firefox now shows the Firefox Suggest results, waits, and then shows an ad at the top, bumping the actual results 2 lines down.

So if I pick the 1st or 2nd result on Firefox suggest, I may end up at an unwanted and unrelated ad instead; if I pick the 3rd result, I end up at the 1st result, etc.

Expected results:

If you're going to show ads, show them at the same time as the other results.

Comment 1

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

It's definitely not intended that the sponsored suggestion shows up after everything else, but due to the technical architecture of Firefox's address bar, some suggestions may appear slightly after others. I'd like to get a sense of how bad it is, so would you be able to attach a screen recording of this happening?

Comment 2

[MarjaE]

I ran into the same bug a couple times today, but I can't re-create it while recording.

Comment 3

[MarjaE]

Attachment: Screen Recording 2024-08-16 at 11.34.19 AM.mov

The ad may show up at the same time the rest of the suggestions update, rather than after.

But the ad shows up after the url bar updates, rather than the same time.

Comment 4

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Thanks. It looks like you either turned off search suggestions or your default engine, Startpage, doesn't show search suggestions, is that right? I just realized we have a bug where Firefox is showing sponsored suggestions at the top of the Firefox Suggest section in either of those cases. They should be shown at the bottom. Fixing that will mostly fix your problem, I think.

However, I also see that the very first suggestion ("o -- Search with Startpage - English") does not update for a good second or more after you type the "l". That leads me to believe that all your suggestions take a long time to update after you type a character. Is that right? That's also not intended and indicates some kind of a performance problem with your Firefox. Is every app on your computer that slow? Or only Firefox?

Comment 5

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Requesting tracking for 129. I think this is worth a dot release if possible. If not, then please track 130.

Sponsored suggestions are unintentionally shown at the top of the Firefox Suggest section in these two cases:

• For users users who have turned off search suggestions
• For users who have search suggestions above the Firefox Section section (the default) but whose default engine doesn't actually return any search suggestions

Showing them at the top in these two cases actually shows them at the top of the suggestions list overall, which is not intended and interferes with user habits.

Sponsored suggestions were moved to the top of the Firefox Section section in 129. Originally they were shown at the top unconditionally (bug 1903160), but we landed a follow-up fix in 129 to show them at the top only for users who have search suggestions above the Firefox Suggest section (bug 1906017) due to the bad UX.

Comment 6

[MarjaE]

Rapid flashing, smooth animation, and separately-scrolling columns trigger my migraines.

I've tried a number of other about:config and user css fixes, but only reducing the frame rate to 1 frame/second comes close to making most websites safe.

Comment 7

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

OK, then the only problem here is sponsored suggestions are in the wrong position. Thanks for filing this bug.

Comment 8

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Attachment: Bug 1912565 - Show sponsored suggestions at the bottom of the Firefox Suggest section when search suggestions are disabled or the default engine doesn't support them.

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/bcac91f9a78e
Show sponsored suggestions at the bottom of the Firefox Suggest section when search suggestions are disabled or the default engine doesn't support them. r=daisuke

Comment 10

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Comment on attachment 9419453 [details]
Bug 1912565 - Show sponsored suggestions at the bottom of the Firefox Suggest section when search suggestions are disabled or the default engine doesn't support them.

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Please see comment 5
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: Yes
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: No
• Needs manual test from QE?: Yes
• If yes, steps to reproduce: Please see comment 5
• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): This just changes the placement of sponsored suggestions.
• String changes made/needed:
• Is Android affected?: No

Comment 11

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Attachment: 129 Release patch

Approval Request Comment

Please see comment 10. The m-c patch doesn't apply cleanly to m-r due to unrelated test changes in bug 1910023 that landed in 130. Two of the tests with conflicts aren't enabled on 129 so I didn't bother touching them in this patch.

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/jobs?repo=try&revision=9cd4031dc877d37726638f44c96a3c536b74382a

Comment 12

[Iulian Moraru]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/bcac91f9a78e

Comment 13

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9419453 [details]
Bug 1912565 - Show sponsored suggestions at the bottom of the Firefox Suggest section when search suggestions are disabled or the default engine doesn't support them.

Approved for 130.0b8. Note that we already shipped our only planned 129 dot release for this cycle, so unless there's another unplanned one between now and next week's Fx130 RC, this won't make it into 129.

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/c278b650f76b

Comment 15

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Issue is reproducible on Firefox 130.0b7 on macOS 12.
Verified as fixed on Firefox 130.0b8 and Firefox Nightly 131.0a1 on macOS 12, Windows 10, Ubuntu 22.
Sponsored Suggestions are now displayed at the bottom of the Firefox Suggest section.

Tested scenarios:

• Google as default search engine with search suggestions disabled.
• Baidu as default search engine with search suggestions enabled.

Comment 16

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9419834 [details] [diff] [review]
129 Release patch

There will not be another 129 dot release before 130 ships.