1988646 - "Pin" icon recently started being present on every single Homescreen shortcuts-tile, which feels confusing and inconsistent with desktop (and earlier Firefox for Android versions)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android :: Privacy, defect)

Description

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Firefox Desktop and Firefox for Android (recent Nightlies at least) both have a section of shortcuts at the top of the new-tab page, which are populated from history, with a concept of those entries being "pinned".

On Desktop, none of these shortcut-tiles are "pinned" by default; they change dynamically depending on your activity/history. But you have the option to "pin" a tile (from its 3-dot menu) which keeps it in-place so that it won't be dynamically replaced. So the "pin" icon represents "this is a tile the user has requested should remain in this topsite/shortcut area.

On Firefox-for-Android right now, it's quite different -- it looks like every shortcut tile shows up as being "pinned" automatically without me taking any explicit action; but also, it's not clear what it even means that they're "pinned"; they seem to get dynamically replaced depending on your activity/history, which is the opposite of how "pinned" shortcuts behave on Desktop.

Not sure if this is a bug, or there's a piece that's still known-to-be-on-the-way, or just a design mismatch between the Android home-screen vs. the desktop new-tab page; but in any case it seems like we should come to some sort of consistent semantics on what these "pin" icons represent and what it means for them to be present/absent.

Comment 1

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

I think these "pin" icons changed recently in bug 1984404, but I'm not sure whether or not this is strictly a regression from that. Adding as a dependency for now.

I don't have concrete STR because I don't know how to make something show up in this "pinned" section.

But comparing Nightly 144.0a1 2025-09-13 to Beta 143.0b9, I noticed two concrete differences:
(A) In Nightly, the two central "Sponsored" tiles now show up with a "pin" icon at their top-left, where they didn't in beta143.
(B) Sometimes when I tap a "Story" at the bottom of the home screen, this results in a shortcut being added (presumably taken from my history). In Nightly, that shortcut shows up with a "pin" icon. In Beta 143.0b9 it does not.

So I'm suspicious that in bug 1984404 or related work, we might have accidentally changed to start showing this "pin" icon unconditionally.

:gl/:dev, perhaps one of you know if this was an intentional change or whether it might have been an inadvertent mistake?

Comment 2

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: screenshot showing Nightly with pins on all 4 default shortcuts

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #1)

(A) In Nightly, the two central "Sponsored" tiles now show up with a "pin" icon at their top-left, where they didn't in beta143.

Here's a screenshot showing this^ in Nightly 144.0a1 2025-09-13 with a fresh profile.

Comment 3

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: screenshot showing Beta with no pin on the two central sponsored shortcuts

Comment 4

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

At least for the sponsored tiles, I confirmed that the pin started appearing in Nightly 2025-09-10 -- the first Nightly where the pins are in the new location at top-left corner. There's no pin for those tiles in the previous Nightly, 2025-09-09 -- that one looks like the beta screenshot in comment 3.

Looking at the Figma design linked in bug 1984404 comment 0, it looks like we didn't intend for that change to make a pin start showing up for sponsored tiles (or even for most of the shortcut tiles), so I suspect this was indeed an unintended regression.

--> Adjusting dependency relationship to regressed-by relationship.

Comment 5

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Relatedly: in my Nightly profile on another phone where I've got some history, if I tap "Show all" for the shortcuts/top-sites section of the Home Screen, I see a grid of 16 shortcuts, all of which have a pin icon, none of which I've explicitly pinned.

Really I think only two of those are pinned in any sense - the top-left and top-right one (Google/Wikipedia), which IIRC we do legitimately pin as default shortcuts that stick around (unless removed by the user).

The other two items in the top row are sponsored, which are programmatically-replaceable and hence don't feel truly "pinned"; and the rest of them are drawn from my history and are also programmatically-replaceable and also don't feel truly "pinned" (unless I were to explicitly pin them in some way like on Desktop -- but for now at least it seems we don't offer a way to do that on Android).

So: since everything is shown as "pinned" despite being mostly dynamically-replaceable, it ends up that our pin badge feels confusing/meaningless right now.

Comment 6

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

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1984404

Comment 7

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

The bug is marked as tracked for firefox144 (beta) and tracked for firefox145 (nightly). However, the bug still isn't assigned.

:Gela, could you please find an assignee for this tracked bug? Given that it is a regression and we know the cause, we could also simply backout the regressor. If you disagree with the tracking decision, please talk with the release managers.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 8

[Devota Aabel [:devota]]

Attachment: Bug 1988646- Fixed bug where shortcuts pin icon was showing for all shortcuts.

Comment 9

[Phabricator Automation]

firefox-beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Bad experience
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: no
• Needs manual QE test: no
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing:
• Risk associated with taking this patch: low
• Explanation of risk level: It's only checking that a shortcut is pinned before adding the visual pin. The check was accidentally removed
• String changes made/needed: no
• Is Android affected?: yes

Comment 10

[Devota Aabel [:devota]]

Attachment: Bug 1988646- Fixed bug where shortcuts pin icon was showing for all shortcuts.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D265317

Comment 11

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/2b35509e5635
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/15d035557d54
Fixed bug where shortcuts pin icon was showing for all shortcuts. r=android-reviewers,gmalekpour

Comment 12

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/15d035557d54

Comment 13

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Thanks! Verified fixed in Nightly 2025-09-19 with a fresh profile - the first/last pin show up as pinned, and the two middle (sponsored) tiles now don't show up as pinned.

Presumably we'll want to uplift to beta within a couple days, assuming there's no unforeseen side effects. [ni=Devota as a reminder to do that]

Comment 14

[Donal Meehan [:dmeehan]]

Thanks :dholbert, there is already a pending beta uplift request. Clearing the need-info request.
I should be on track to take it for the next beta build.

Comment 15

[Pulsebot]

https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/e621d885cd3f
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/3c0ea4b8fb46

Comment 16

[Lorand Janos]

Verified as fixed on the latest Nightly and Beta builds.

The first/last pin show up as pinned, and the two middle (sponsored) tiles now don't show up as pinned.

Builds tested:

• latest Nightly 145.0a1 from 2025-09-23;
• latest Beta 144.0b4;

Devices tested:

• Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (Android 15);
• OnePlus 12R (Android 15);

I'll mark this ticket as verified on 144 and 145.

Comment 17

[Lorand Janos]

Attachment: Screenshot_20250923_155222_Firefox Beta.jpg