628244 - Firefox mobile shouldn't only be available on the android market (please keep the ftp.mozilla.org link to the latest Android build up-to-date)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Release Engineering :: General, defect)

Description

[Etenil]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.7) Gecko/20100716 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.6.7
Build Identifier: 4.0b3

Some of us refuse to install the google apps on our android devices for these are non-free software. Firefox being free software, it doesn't make sense to have to pass through a non-free software in order to install it.

There are some other markets out there, for example fdroid, and the .apk could also be directly downloadable from firefox mobile's website.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to firefox mobile website
2. Notice the links don't work as they require the market to work.
Actual Results:  
Can't install firefox without market

Expected Results:  
Having an apk file downloaded to the device.

Comment 1

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

You can download the .apk directly from Mozilla's website :
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/

Comment 2

[Josh Matthews [:jdm]]

Will non-market builds receive updates?  I thought there was talk of turning off the updater for official builds.

Comment 3

[Etenil]

Hi, thanks for the link,

I understand your reluctance to consider this a valid bug, and I can see you do have apks available. However, a link to other download options on the mobile website[1] would be a lot more convenient than searching through a search engine, especially from a mobile device.

[1]http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/m/

Comment 4

[Michael von Glasow]

Firefox just got added to the F-Droid repository:

http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.firefox&fdpage=3

Comment 5

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

We did not upload that file. However the md5sums are correct

Comment 6

[Michael von Glasow]

yes, I signaled that Firefox was missing in their repository and they added it. Apparently they host apks on their own mirror, not sure how they usually get updates when new versions are released.

Comment 7

[Matěj Cepl]

(In reply to Fabrice Desré [:fabrice] from comment #1)
> You can download the .apk directly from Mozilla's website :
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/

I accept Mozilla Foundation decision not to provide packages for f-droid (although I don't like it), but please at least keep this link up-to-date. For example, just now

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/android/en-US/

points to http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/android/en-US/fennec-14.0.2.en-US.android-arm.apk although FF16 is already out.

Comment 8

[david8black]

It is possible to create an F-droid compatible repo,  which functions like an Ubuntu PPA. Users can add this to the F-droid client and receive notifications of new versions. A current limitation is that each build must have a distinct version name and code, though I understand this will be rectified soon. If such a repo were to be made available it could be included by the default in F-droid, so that F-droid.org would no longer need to offer the apk on www.f-droid.org, meaning that users would always be notified of upgrades so long as the app is installed.

 If F-droid.org does choose to offer source builds at some point, then users would still always have the option to revert to a Mozilla-signed apk. Indeed, it should be possible to offer the Mozilla.org repo as top priority so that users will be offered that before an f-droid.org build.

Comment 9

[Matěj Cepl]

(In reply to david8black from comment #8)
> It is possible to create an F-droid compatible repo,  which functions like

That would be absolutely awesome ... even better if we could get whole range of Mozilla streams (nightly, aurora, beta, released).

And just to emphasize ... the link to the latest/android is still wrong.

Comment 10

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

I've updated the latest link to to 16.0.1. Bug 795774 covers keeping it up to date.

Comment 11

[david8black]

If the armv6 build was given a version name (or package ID) distinct from the arm-v7a build then it too would be allowed in the f-droid.org repo.

Comment 12

[Jake Maul [:jakem]]

I'm not sure where this bug belongs now (maybe resolved, given comment 10?), but it's not something WebOps can handle.

Moving to Releng just for confirmation before closing.

Comment 13

[Amy Rich [:arr] [:arich]]

actually moving this to releng, not relops.

Comment 14

[Amy Rich [:arr] [:arich]]

I would say that eastern timezone mornings would work best for me.

Comment 15

[Amy Rich [:arr] [:arich]]

Ignore comment 14, wrong bug.

Comment 16

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

We maintain https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/ and https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest-beta/ automatically now. I'm pretty sure this bug is fixed now?