709888 - Remove UA switcher

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

The Request Desktop Site option is not applicable for many pages:

- sites that only have desktop content
- sites that do not recognize Firefox mobile and return the desktop content
- mobiles sites that I explicitly navigate to (for ex. open m.imdb.com in your browser) (because Firefox gets the desktop sites by default)
- about: pages

While I like the idea of being able to request the desktop vs mobile version of a site and would find this option useful if it worked reliably, I do not find this option useful today. At this point I think the option just adds a source of confusion to the browser (and affects the browser polish as the option appears to do nothing on many sites). I would like to suggest that this option should be removed from the menu until such time that it is generally applicable when browsing in Firefox mobile.

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

bug 706264 is about redirects to mobiles sites breaking 'request desktop site'. From my brief look into Android browsers it seems that most implement this as a global option or a set of sites to use a a specific UA with.

Comment 2

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

I agree with Lawrence. It fails often enough that it's more frustrating to have it than to not. This feature really ought to be removed because it's just not reliable enough.

Comment 3

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

I think we should hide/remove this feature.

Comment 4

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

Attachment: patch v.1

Comment 5

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Comment on attachment 586573 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v.1

We do want to remove the feature. I talked to Brian about removing it all. Even the part in browser.js

Comment 6

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

Attachment: patch v2

Comment 7

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

Landed on mozilla-inbound:
http://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/c04fb55118f8

Comment 8

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c04fb55118f8

Comment 9

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Comment on attachment 587090 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

[Approval Request Comment]
Removal of the feature on Aurora

Comment 10

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Verified on Nightly (12.0a1)
Samsung Nexus S (Android 4.0.3)
20120113052739
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/790cd9bba7f5

Comment 11

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

Comment on attachment 587090 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

[Triage Comment]
Mobile only - approved for Aurora.

Comment 12

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/22710663cf24