214360 - SmartUpdate

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Feature tracking. Assess smartupdate needs (back end, UI etc) for Firebird so we
can push updates to users.

Comment 1

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Notes - 

- Seamonkey's system is a little simplistic. We want to be able to show a list
of updates that apply, and their severity, as well as auto-selecting the
'critical' ones for installation. 

e.g.  

1) a notification UI that updates are available
2) when user invokes this, some other UI is presented that shows, 

    a) Critical Updates (checked for installation) - e.g. security hotfixes
    b) Optional Updates (not checked for installation) 
             - bugfixes for existing components
             - newer versions of extensions (?)

Both (a) and (b) can offer a new browser version install - under (a) if the new
version contains a critical security fix or (b) if it's purely optional. 

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 229353 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Felix Seeger]

What about an option where to download/check for this updates ? 
 
It would be possible for a company to have a central place and not 
download/check everything x times. 

Comment 4

[Brian Lalonde]

Updates to the back end (that do not affect the UI) should be invisible by default.

Too many people will never update on their own. Upgrades to HTTP, (X)HTML, XML,
CSS, ECMAScript, DOM, Unicode, XForms, etc. compliance should be downloaded in
the background, and installed at the next shutdown or startup.

Comment 5

[Unknown W. Brackets]

I disagree.  There should at the very least be some method of disabling any
SmartUpdate.

For example, you may want to test your html on old, and yes buggy, versions of
Mozilla or Firefox.  Making SmartUpdate do anything without some sort of warning
and way to disable it would not be helpful at all.

But, it's true that you want people to update.  It reduces support and makes the
product seem less buggy over all.

-[Unknown]

Comment 6

[Jesse Ruderman]

[e-mail]: you want to be able to disable SmartUpdate so you
can test your HTML against older versions of Gecko, in case other people also
disable SmartUpdate?  That sounds like a circular argument.

Comment 7

[Karthik Sheka]

There is the possibility that an XPI or plugin may no longer work once the
system is updated (ie: the Adobe SVG plugin, Tabbed Browser Extension). 
Regardless of whose is at fault for the breakage, the fact remains that some
people may not want to update if it means that they can no longer use a
necessary (for them) extension.

Another issue is use of Mozilla over an intranet which has no direct access to
the internet.  Mozilla shouldn't attempt to "call home" to check for updates. 
In fact, under certain circumstances, that may

Let SmartUpdate be on by default, but 1) make a simple UI for disabling it, 2)
make it possible for administrators to create local repositories of updates they
want pushed to people on their intranets, and 3) allow an option to download
updates in the background and signal users when an update is ready to be
installed, giving the option to not install it at that point.

Comment 8

[Unknown W. Brackets]

(In reply to comment #6)
> [e-mail]: you want to be able to disable SmartUpdate so you
> can test your HTML against older versions of Gecko, in case other people also
> disable SmartUpdate?  That sounds like a circular argument.

Obviously not.  I mean exactly as Karthik Sheka said; I want to be on top of
intranets and such things.

Don't get me wrong.  I like updating.  I hate it when people have older versions
of browsers or browser software, just because they haven't updated.  I like
Windows' Automatic Updates because they solve this problem, often.

However, I also write forum software and have to deal with all the eccentricties
of browsers.  For example, I had to deal with the issue that 0.8 and before
sometimes crashed when overflow was set to auto, white-space to pre, and there
was no height explicitly set - with and only with long amounts of content.

Not being able to do proper testing to me just means more support requests, and
more problems.  I am not an idealist; I cannot imagine that every single install
will be up to date.  So I don't want to have to set up a virtual machine without
internet to troubleshoot the issue.

-[Unknown]

Comment 9

[Christopher Nebergall]

(In reply to comment #3)
> What about an option where to download/check for this updates ? 
>  
> It would be possible for a company to have a central place and not 
> download/check everything x times. 

I like this idea because if a company could run their own update server, they
could push not only bug fixes, but push their own custom extentions, CA certs,
plugins (Flash, Real Audio, etc), set the companies domain name in the trusted
list for cookies, pop up's etc.   One place where Mozilla can't really compete
with IE is centralized management and this would go a long way to fixing this.

Comment 10

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

fixed br and trunk.