1960340 - Difference in Reading Time Between Link Previews and Reader View on some Websites

Status: NEW

(Core :: Machine Learning, defect)

Description

[Ciprian Georgiu, Desktop QA]

Found in

• Nightly 139.0a1

Affected versions

• Nightly 139.0a1
• Beta 138.0b6

Tested platforms

• Affected platforms: Windows 11, Ubuntu 24.04, macOS 14

Preconditions

• Firefox is launched.
• browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled = true

Steps to reproduce

1. Navigate to https://edition.cnn.com/
2. Hover over a link on the page and press the "Shift" + "Alt" key on the keyboard.
3. Observe the reader view estimates.

Expected result

• The reading time estimate displayed in Link Previews matches the one shown in Reader View mode for the same article.

Actual result

• The reading time estimate in Link Previews is lower than the one shown in Reader View mode for the same article.

Regression range

• Not a regression.

Additional notes

• In the tested example (an article from the CNN homepage), the reading time estimate in Link Previews was 10–13 minutes, while the same article in Reader View mode showed 18–23 minutes.
• On Wikipedia pages, the estimates in Reader View and Link Previews appear to match, suggesting that this issue does not affect all websites.