Closed Bug 1387384 Opened 7 years ago Closed 7 years ago

'Move to SD Card' is not available in Firefox for Android (Fennec) 55.0

Categories

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

55 Branch
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: ric.valechat, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0
Build ID: 20170629111720

Steps to reproduce:

"Move to SD Card" is not available in Firefox for Android (Fennec) 55.0

Samsung phone running Android 5.0.2 ARMv7



Expected results:

Should be able to move app to external SD.
Hey, no one will take look?
This should be High Priority.
Flags: needinfo?(s.kaspari)
This functionality was removed in Bug 1322029.
See Also: → 1322029
Mehh
So, you guys think Firefox for Android is a small app that can fit on the internal storage of every phone?
50MB app + 45MB data + 66MB cache = more than 160MB.
Not to mention rendering performance is much worse than Chromium-based browsers.

Is this how Mozilla "fix" bugs, by disabling important features?
What a weird way to fix something that "only affects Android 6.0" when installing over "adopted storage".

So, my suggestion for users that need FFA for something is to stay at v54. Otherwise, tap Uninstall button.
Flagging for triage so that this can be discussed by the core mobile browser team.
tracking-fennec: --- → ?
Flags: needinfo?(s.kaspari)
tracking-fennec: ? → ---
Ricardo,

While I understand your frustration, this was the right decision to make, independent of bug 1322029. Firefox uses AccountManager for implementing sync, which is listed as a reason to disallow external storage in the Google guidelines found here[0]. Additionally, things like Web Push would not work when the SD card is removed.

Chrome doesn't allow external storage either, likely for similar reasons. It's also much larger.


[0] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/install-location.html#ShouldNot
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
@snorp: thx for the explanation.
I don't think it was the right decision. People moving their apps on external storage are normally warned if one ore multiple of the described features are used (like ex. app is listening for "boot completed") so users mostly know what they do. Firefox would work as expected if SD-card is present, and of course not, if it is removed (manually or USB mass storage plugged). The vast majority of the apps movable to external storage use at least one of the described features in https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/install-location.html#ShouldNot
Hi all. I'm the reporter of the duplicate bug 1459459, didn't find this bug although searched, sorry :)


After reading this bug here, my 5 cents:


I'm using FF from the earliest beginning, switching to FF after being a Netscape user for years, trying to avoid IE, and later Chrome, as much as possible. So FFA was my natural selection, once available.

If I got your intentions right, the decision to drop "Move to SD-Card", even for Adoptable Storage, was made of the following points:

1. AOSP doc https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/install-location#ShouldNot, because FF "Sync" uses Android's AccountManager.

I would never ever store credentials on an external server, howsoever secure the encryption might be. Of course only my personal decision, but I really would like to know how the percentage of FF users also using Sync is, I would guess it's vanishing small. 

So I'm really frustrated that you force a majority of users in a direction probably only a few users are affected with. 

Even the reason itself is frustrating, as the mentioned doc, at least regarding my cell phone, is completely wrong: 
"Your accounts created with AccountManager will disappear until external storage is remounted." is NOT TRUE, they disappear FOREVER after e.g. a reboot. Which IMHO is nothing else than an ugly Android bug, probably, as usual, never being fixed, at least not in the next decade. As I'm using Adoptable Storage on my cheap phone, I'm affected by this bug for several apps using AccountManager, like e.g. Nextcloud App, German XING app, or German Onleihe App. "Workaround" is to enter credentials again after reboot. As I accept that I have to live with this, trying to avoid reboots as a consequence, why couldn't FF Sync users not also accept it, as they're also affected by this AOSP bug for other apps than Sync if they also use Adoptable Storage? Worth mentioning as a Known Issue in the release notes, and that's it?

As some of the other before said, FFA has been, also in my case, one of the TOP 5 app left in "internal" internal storage, depending on cache size up to more than 200 MB! That's why FFA is the #1 candidate to be moved to sd.

BTW you've mentioned Chrome, also not being able to be moved to sd: Chrome is afaik a system app, all of them could not be moved to sd, and also not even being uninstalled. Is the fact that obviously Google distrusts it's own implementation of Adoptable Storage a reason not to support it in an open, free, and much advanced app like FFA? Never, IMHO.


2. Bug 1322029 (Startup crashes for moved-to-SD FFA)
As a workaround, and to test what's been written here, I've installed "APK Editor", found no similar FOSS app in F-Droid, and changed only the very small piece of information of "Install Location", set it to "Prefer External" for my FFA.

Guess what, FFA works like a charm being installed on my Adoptable Storage, no crash, nothing !!!

But this in fact is an ugly workaround, as APK Editor produces a changed FFA APK which I could not use for an "update" of my existing FFA, it worked first after my existing FFA was uninstalled. Means all of my locally (not Sync ;)) saved credentials etc. are gone. Having to do this for each update would be a real pain in the neck.


Summarized: As we in fact are talking about changing only one single parameter value in an APK / config file, no idea why this has been called a (dropped) "FEATURE", could you 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

rethink your decision and let the end user decide where he/she/it wants FFA finally being deployed on their phones? 

Put "use at you're own risk" or similar in the release notes, but make FFA -->F<--OSS again ;)


Thanks in advance,
sorry for this very long post,
Michael

At least in LineageOS-15.1 there is an option to allow installation to external storage regardless of the manifest setting. It is in the Settings app on System->Developer options->Force allow apps on external. Text is "Makes any app eligible to be written to external storage, regardless of manifest values".
I use Firefox-68.0 on SD-card since one month now and it is working flawlessly.

I have 16 GB of internal memory on my phone and FF (v82.1.3) currently consumes 1.5 GB.
Cache accounted, I think, but there is no option to move it on SD card.

Product: Firefox for Android → Firefox for Android Graveyard
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