728773 - Always freeze the build ID in the UA string at 20100101

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Bug 588909 seeks to change the UA string to use the release version instead of a frozen-or-not date. As of right now, that's looking to cause too much breakage and may not stick.

Currently (well, before the change in bug 588909), the Firefox Release and Beta channels have a frozen "Gecko/20100101" [sic] string (bug 591537), whereas Aurora and Nightly are still using a string with the actual build date. AIUI, that was done so support and nightly fans could easily check what version they're running (especially in the past when the UA was prominently shown in the About dialog).

I suggest that until bug 588909 is sorted out, we change Nightly and Aurora to use the same frozen "Gecko/20100101" string as Beta and Release already do. It's good to be consistent with what ultimately ships, and should be safe and non-controversial since Beta/Release already do this.

We probably want to hang some dependent bugs off this one, to show the actual build date in about:support / about:buildconfig / some other useful place. That will allow support and community to easily check it, without exposing it in the UA.

[Note that if bug 588909 gets sorted out, this bug is basically moot. My point isn't to prefer "Gecko/20100101" over "Gecko/13.0", but rather just to make an easy change to the status quo if bug 588909 gets delayed.]

Comment 1

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

FWIW, for consistency across channels, we could alternatively fix bug 728797 and that would fix Zimbra for us.

Comment 2

[Daniel C]

(In reply to Justin Dolske [:Dolske] from comment #0)
> We probably want to hang some dependent bugs off this one, to show the
> actual build date in about:support / about:buildconfig / some other useful
> place. That will allow support and community to easily check it, without
> exposing it in the UA.

Bug 589444.

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

The dynamic build ID continues to break sites. See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=12993569#p12993569 and the following posts.

We should freeze it for nightly/aurora so testers will test what we ship to end users and we shouldn't let other Gecko applications differ in this regard either.

Comment 4

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Daniel Cater from comment #2)
> (In reply to Justin Dolske [:Dolske] from comment #0)
> > We probably want to hang some dependent bugs off this one, to show the
> > actual build date in about:support / about:buildconfig / some other useful
> > place. That will allow support and community to easily check it, without
> > exposing it in the UA.
> 
> Bug 589444.

The build date is exposed in the About window. about:buildconfig exposes the changeset which is already more accurate.

Comment 5

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: 20100101.diff

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I don't want to make this change until I'm sure that Support are happy with it. CCing ibai and mluna.

Gerv

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Comment on attachment 783776 [details] [diff] [review]
20100101.diff

r=me

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #6)
> I don't want to make this change until I'm sure that Support are happy with
> it. CCing ibai and mluna.
> 
> Gerv

You mean end-user support aka SUMO? The build ID is already frozen for the users targeted there.

Comment 9

[Ibai Garcia [:ibai]]

Agree with comment 8, we target Release user (and Beta to a certain extend) so we are not blocking this. We are good to go.

Thanks for looping us in.

Comment 10

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Comment on attachment 783776 [details] [diff] [review]
20100101.diff

Review of attachment 783776 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

OK, r=gerv on the principle of making Nightly and Aurora match Beta and Release.

Gerv

::: netwerk/protocol/http/nsHttpHandler.cpp
@@ -313,3 @@
>  #endif
> -    if (mProductSub.IsEmpty() && appInfo)
> -        appInfo->GetPlatformBuildID(mProductSub);

Can the GetPlatformBuildID function now be removed, or is it used elsewhere?

Comment 11

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #10)
> Can the GetPlatformBuildID function now be removed, or is it used elsewhere?

It's part of nsIXULAppInfo and still used in JS. http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/search?string=.platformBuildID

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/914a4d53edfb

Comment 13

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/914a4d53edfb

Comment 14

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Things I rarely say: "I am so happy we've finally made this change to the UA". <3

Comment 16

[Vic]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20130805 Firefox/24.0

it is not fixed.

It needs to say:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0

Comment 17

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Vic, see the "Target Milestone" field of this bug?

Comment 18

[j.j.]

adding dev-doc-needed keyword, it's probably worth to note in "Firefox 25 for developers"
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/25

and may be other docs needs to change

Comment 19

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I'm not sure we need to note this in "Firefox 25 for developers" because nothing has changed on the Beta or Release channels.

Gerv

Comment 20

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #19)
> I'm not sure we need to note this in "Firefox 25 for developers" because
> nothing has changed on the Beta or Release channels.

True. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Gecko_user_agent_string_reference also reflects this already.

Comment 21

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Posted the site compatibility doc for the record: https://www.fxsitecompat.com/en-US/docs/2015/build-id-in-ua-string-is-now-frozen-at-20100101/