2020282 - Remove browser.search.widget.removeAfterDaysUnused and related behavior

Status: ASSIGNED

(Firefox :: Search, task, P2)

Description

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

mbeier found out in bug 2019574 that browser.search.widget.lastUsed wasn't being set with the new search bar implementation. This pref is being used to automatically remove the search bar from the toolbar. This goes back to bug 1852051. The intent was to handle the case of the search bar being left behind unused on the toolbar from when it was in the toolbar by default way back in the day. Now that we've shipped that auto-removal behavior for a while, we can assume that people have the search bar on the toolbar today put it there manually and intentionally. Therefore we should be able to get rid of the auto-removal behavior altogether.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

This will have to wait a little longer, as this behavior has been broken entirely (bug 2022159). We'll want to ship that fix for a few releases before removing the code.

Comment 2

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

The auto-removal has been live on Release since mid to late May, and after lots of auto-removals in the first weeks, it's now stabilizing to a level where I think we can think about retiring the auto-removal: https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/queries/121788/source#296915

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 2020282 - Remove browser.search.widget.removeAfterDaysUnused and related behavior.

The search bar auto-removal (bug 1852051) cleaned up search bars left on the
toolbar from back when it shipped there by default. It's been live on Release
since May and has stabilized, so anyone who has the search bar on the toolbar
today put it there intentionally, and the behavior can go.

This drops the removeAfterDaysUnused pref, the lastUsed tracking that fed the
unused threshold, the removal logic, and its short-lived telemetry probe.
SearchWidgetTracker's persisted-width cleanup is a separate concern and stays.