revisit: search engine region

v107 enables region tracking (0203) again, why?

browser.region.network.url is the broader setting which needs to be blocked to prevent mozilla and firefox from knowing your region (region.current, region.home, browser.search.region, doh-rollout.home-region). browser.region.update.enabled is a specific setting which only controls if firefox is allowed to switch region.home.

So browser.region.network.url is probably the main thing we want and not a just an additional defense-in-depth.

As firefox is now allowed to set browser.search.region we probably need to make 0204 active, too.

_Originally posted by @livingentity in https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/pull/1579#discussion_r1027291580_ _Originally posted by @Thorin-Oakenpants in https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/pull/1579#discussion_r1027378233_

[fxbrit]

I looked some stuff up, to be clear none of this is a privacy or security thing but it’s just for future reference if ever needed.

The region is grabbed from IDK, you IP and maybe from your regional locale of the OS.

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/testing/profiles/common/user.js#28-30

so it uses a “geoip lookup” aka your IP as you rightfully guessed.

What is the criteria for a search engine to change?

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/services/settings/dumps/main/search-config.json

this is the static dump but it can be updated via remote settings.

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IMO this is a non-issue and we should leave it alone. most users will change their search engine (at leas the default one) and for the scope of this project the other ones do not matter; trying to match the IP with the search engine location makes little sense: we have no clue of the IP a priori, firefox is geoguessing so that could actually be a good thing as it would match the IP with the region and most importantly I would assume users trust the search engine they set as their default. if they don’t then it’s their interest to protect the IP.

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

yes i was using google.com. but when i search for example ‘tab session manager’. it still shows the extension page in local language.

I asked when you search (i.e from the urlbar or the search bar) if it loads google.com - YES or NO? I’m trying to make sense of what you are saying. So you search for “tab session manager” - and you you get a bunch of results on google.com - right? WHAT page shows your locale - the google.com search results or the firefox addon page you went to from the search results? If it’s the latter, then what is the url of the link from the search results - e.g. it may have a \en-US\ or \en-DE path - for me it’s https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/ (and that’s with my region set an en-somethingelse).

As for AMO (Addons MOzilla), there are a few things going on, but I’m going to stop there until I know what you are talking about - but one is the language you request websites to use. If you load https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/ (without the en-US part) the site will redirect based on your preferred web language

And for google results, they can differ based on IP, but AFAICT they wouldn’t change the preview except based on your prefered language. Are you in fact using en-US, en? What is the language you are seeing? What is your app language? What is your region?