Browser Usage Telemetry

The BrowserUsageTelemetry.jsm module is the main module for measurements regarding the browser usage (e.g. tab and window counts, search counts, …).

The measurements recording begins right after the SessionStore has finished restoring the session (i.e. restoring tabs/windows after Firefox starts).

Search telemetry

This module exposes the recordSearch method, which serves as the main entry point for recording search related Telemetry. It records only the search counts per engine and the origin of the search, but nothing pertaining the search contents themselves.

As the transition to the BrowserUsageTelemetry happens, the recordSearch calls are dispatched through BrowserSearch.recordSearchInTelemetry, that is called by all the search related UI components (urlbar, searchbar, context menu and about:* pages).

A list of the components recording search Telemetry can be found using the following DXR search.

Measured interactions

The usage telemetry module currently measures these interactions with the browser:

• tab and window engagement: counts the number of non-private tabs and windows opened in a subsession, after the session is restored (see e.g. browser.engagement.max_concurrent_tab_count);
• URI loads: counts the number of page loads (doesn’t track and send the addresses, just the counts) directly triggered by the users (see browser.engagement.total_uri_count);
• navigation events: at this time, this only counts the number of time a page load is triggered by a particular UI interaction (e.g. by searching through the URL bar, see browser.engagement.navigation.urlbar).

Please see Scalars.yaml for the full list of tracked interactions.