1937622 - Reinstall with "restore default settings" removes pinned tabs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Chris DuPuis]

When re-installing Firefox, we show a screen that says "Firefox has been installed before. Let's get you a new copy", and it has the following option checked (enabled) by default: "Restore default settings and remove old add-ons for optimal performance"

If you leave this box checked, when Firefox opens, it will not preserve any of your tabs, including pinned tabs. That is, it does not respect either the "Open previous windows and tabs" setting, or the user's explicit choice to pin a tab.

Pinned tabs in particular are important to preserve, since they act as "super bookmarks" that are always visible and active (able to show status like unread messages).

Comment 1

[Chris DuPuis]

There are two separable problems here:

1. We are guiding the user to the option that will throw away all their tabs, but we are not informing users that this is the consequence of accepting "Restore default settings"
2. The installer is treating pinned tabs as disposable, in a way that does not match the "bookmark-like" treatment that is otherwise seen for pinned tabs.

Comment 2

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

Can you please post a screenshot. There are several similar messages and it's not clear which one you are talking about.

Comment 3

[Chris DuPuis]

Attachment: reinstall_message.png

Added image of reinstall message

Comment 4

[Chris DuPuis]

Discussion in Slack: https://mozilla.slack.com/archives/CSQKWNMEE/p1734366837515119

Comment 5

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

(In reply to Chris DuPuis from comment #1)

2. The installer is treating pinned tabs as disposable, in a way that does not match the "bookmark-like" treatment that is otherwise seen for pinned tabs.

To be clear, you lose a lot more than just your pinned tabs when you refresh.

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Our team really doesn't get to decide what the stub installer looks like. Product is extraordinarily opinionated about this and they are the ones who own that decision. Filing a bug isn't technically an appropriate first step here because the logical resolution of this bug is to close it INVALID since your complaint is with the design, not that the implementation doesn't match the intended design. In other words, this feature is currently working as-intended.

If you can get someone from product to agree to change this design, we can reopen this bug and use it to track making that change. But until then, we don't really have the authority to make changes here.