762966 - reset homepage pref for users who have it set to google.com/firefox

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

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

As detailed in bug 710542, a number of users still have the Google hosted Firefox home page (google.com/firefox) set as their default. This page informs the user that their Firefox installation is out of date. The default homepage for all users should be about:home. We should put something in product that automatically detects that google.com/firefox is set as the home page and automatically updates the preference to about:home. We may want to make this a one shot deal in case any user does consciously decide to set the Google page again after we change it. (Wouldn't want to continue to clobber their choice.)

Alternatively, we can consider using an add-on hotfix to change the default page. Not sure where a request would be filed to deliver an add-on hotfix.

Comment 1

[Valerio Capello]

I think this shouldn't be totally automatic: the user has to be informed of the change, with a request box.
Especially considering that currently about:home misses many features, especially search as you type and search by hitting return (instead that clicking on the button), which should probably be filed as a bug.

Comment 2

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

(In reply to Valerio Capello from comment #1)
> I think this shouldn't be totally automatic: the user has to be informed of
> the change, with a request box.
> Especially considering that currently about:home misses many features,
> especially search as you type and search by hitting return (instead that
> clicking on the button), which should probably be filed as a bug.

Yes. We should consider the pros/cons of being noisy with this change in terms of requiring user input or informing the user. As one option, we can change the home page to about:home and inform the user on about:home (possibly via a snippet) that their home page has been updated and giving them an undo option.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak] (Away Apr 25 - May 5)]

(In reply to Valerio Capello from comment #1)
>  search by hitting return

please clarify, for me it works flawlessy.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak] (Away Apr 25 - May 5)]

(In reply to Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] from comment #2)
>  As one option, we can
> change the home page to about:home and inform the user on about:home
> (possibly via a snippet) that their home page has been updated and giving
> them an undo option.

This would add a lot of code complication, especially for the fact snippets cannot execute privileged code.

Comment 5

[Valerio Capello]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Valerio Capello from comment #1)
> >  search by hitting return
> 
> please clarify, for me it works flawlessy.

It's working now. I couldn't reproduce it.

Comment 6

[Chris More [:cmore]]

Is this still an issue? Firefox 3.6 and previous are now redirected to start.mozilla.org which is hosted on Mozilla's servers. This redirect was done via DNS changes and should display in Firefox 3.6 users unless they manually changed their homepage to google.com/firefox. Users are still able to go to google.com/firefox since Mozilla doesn't control that page and Google is not interested in redirecting it to start.mozilla.org.

Christie: Do you have any additional feedback?

Comment 7

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

The goal of this bug is to add code to reset the preference for users who've custom-set it to http://google.com/firefox, since apparently some users have done that unintentionally.

Comment 8

[Chris More [:cmore]]

ok, cool. thanks.

Comment 9

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Attachment: v1

I am not sure whether it's the right place to put the code in nsBrowserContentHandler.js.  Please check.

Comment 10

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Comment on attachment 665285 [details] [diff] [review]
v1

I think you want to put this in nsBrowserGlue.js (_migrateUI).

Comment 11

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Attachment: v2

Moved code to _migrateUI

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Comment on attachment 665353 [details] [diff] [review]
v2

>+    if (currentUIVersion < 8) {
>+      // Reset homepage pref for users who have it set to google.com/firefox
>+      var uri = Services.prefs.getComplexValue("browser.startup.homepage",
>+                                               Ci.nsIPrefLocalizedString).data;
>+      if (uri && /^https?:\/\/(www\.)?google(\.\w{2,3}){1,2}\/firefox\/?$/.test(uri)) {
>+        Services.prefs.clearUserPref("browser.startup.homepage");
>+      }
>+    }

nit: use let instead of var

Comment 13

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Attachment: Patch for checkin

Updated var to let

https://tbpl.mozilla.org/?tree=Try&rev=9685ba5d3a9b

Comment 14

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Passed try
https://tbpl.mozilla.org/?tree=Try&rev=ea91573e174d

Comment 15

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/3eb02ef25ea5

Comment 16

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3eb02ef25ea5

Comment 17

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/9f476b4ac1e1