1983296 - Unship `privacy.globalprivacycontrol.functionality.enabled`

Status: NEW

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, task, P2)

Comment 1

[Benjamin VanderSloot [:bvandersloot]]

This turns the availability of the feature on. It's been shipped a while, let's get rid of it.

Comment 2

[Charlotte Wilson [:cswilson252]]

This is still false in StaticPrefList.yaml. I'm guessing we can flip it to be always true and remove all of the lines that override StaticPrefList at the same time?

Comment 3

[Benjamin VanderSloot [:bvandersloot]]

You actually should be able to remove it from StaticPrefList.yaml, all of those lines can be removed, and we can remove all of the places it is used with code that assumes it to be true

Comment 4

[Charlotte Wilson [:cswilson252]]

Attachment: Bug 1983296 - Unship redundant privacy.globalprivacycontrol.functionality.enabled flag r?#anti-tracking!,dom-core!,dom-worker-reviewers!,necko-reviewers!

Comment 5

[Charlotte Wilson [:cswilson252]]

Attachment: Bug 1983296 - Remove redundant gpc.functionality flag from GeckoviewRuntimeSettings r=geckoview-reviewers!, hjones!

Comment 6

[Dan Mehic]

Attachment: Bug 1983296 - Unship privacy.globalprivacycontrol.functionality.enabled r?bvandersloot

This pref gated the availability of GPC as a whole, acting as a third
"undecided" state that left navigator.globalPrivacyControl undefined and
suppressed the Sec-GPC header. It has been set to true in firefox.js since
GPC shipped, so remove it and assume it to be true everywhere.

Removed from StaticPrefList.yaml, from every line that set it (firefox.js,
GeckoRuntimeSettings, the about:preferences settings config, and the test
pref environments), and from every use: the three C++ conjunctions in
nsHttpChannel/Navigator/WorkerNavigator, the [Pref=] annotation on the
GlobalPrivacyControl WebIDL mixin, the StartupTelemetry check and its
observer, and the visibility gate on the gpcEnabled setting.

This is a no-op for desktop Firefox and for Fenix/Focus, which reach
setGlobalPrivacyControl() at startup and committed the pref to true there.
The one observable change is for GeckoView embedders that never call
setGlobalPrivacyControl(): navigator.globalPrivacyControl becomes false
rather than undefined. No Sec-GPC header is sent either way, since both
privacy.globalprivacycontrol.enabled and .pbmode.enabled default to false.

There is no GeckoView API change: the removed Pref field is package-private
and api.txt is untouched.

The browser_privacy_gpc.js task asserting the section is hidden when the
feature pref is disabled is removed rather than rewritten, since its premise
no longer exists; nonTechnicalPrivacyGroup is now unconditionally visible,
which matches its behaviour with the pref set to true.