1131004 - Pre-installed OpenH264 add-on has no pertinent user information about why it's installed

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

Confirmed through bug 1130642 that the OpenH264 video codec is intended to be a pre-installed add-on.

I understand the reasoning, but there is no information available to the user who wishes to know:
a) why this add-on was pre-installed (when add-ons in theory are user-initiated customizations and personalizations)
b) any information about the add-on itself (no link for 'find out more' so I feel more confident about what's been added to my browser and why Mozilla thinks it's important / benefit to me)
c) why they can't uninstall it (and therefore when the user taps on the add-on, they are presented with a title called OPTIONS with 'disable' as the only actual option which made me pause for a long time thinking we were missing some options)

I'd like some better copy here explaining why this is installed (and obviously therefore the benefit of having it installed) and being purposefully added and vetted by Mozilla.

Not sure who manages the copy of the add-on? There looks to have been a number of questions on SUMO relating to the add-on (for desktop from skimming, but also applies to Android). Therefore likely a 'find out more' link will do to a (existing?) SUMO article.

Copying (and NI-ing) Maire as my starting point. My goal here is to try to stem user confusion from the outset. 

Regardless, we need to give users more info - that's my point!

Comment 1

[Maire Reavy [:mreavy]]

bsmedberg, gfritsche -- Who would be the right UX person to address Karen's request for better user information?  Or should I redirect to Madhava?  Also, do you have opinions on what you want the user info to say?  Thanks.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Please redirect to UX. psackl for desktop or dhenein for mobile.

We explicitly don't want to have an uninstall option that removes the addon from the list, because then users will have no way to get it back.

Comment 3

[Maire Reavy [:mreavy]]

Hi Philipp & Darrin -- Karen wants to improve the user info about OpenH264.  What's the best way to get this request prioritized for Desktop and Mobile?  Should I just add this bug to the Firefox backlog and send a short email to gmc?

Comment 4

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

Who actually owns that content in describing the add-on? Certainly not UX and certainly not by product - typically, it would be the add-on developer (from my little knowledge about add-ons).

So who 'created' this add-on in the first place? Could we not provide the same info for both desktop & mobile by finding the owner of whoever wrote that text originally?

Comment 5

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The description of OpenH264 was written by Cisco, I believe. We ship this as part of the product, though, so we can definitely work to improve the wording to explain that this is a builtin part of Firefox.

Comment 6

[Maire Reavy [:mreavy]]

Hi Karen -- There's a lot of backstory on the OpenH264 plugin that you don't have.  I'm happy to bring you up to speed on irc or video, but most folks copied on this bug already have the backstory. And I don't want to distract from the purpose of this bug.

The tl;dr is the OpenH264 add-on is not a typical add-on.  We (Mozilla) wrote and maintain the code to install and update it; the H.264 codec that the add-on uses is provided by openh264.org, but the openh264.org folks didn't write the add-on installation code. The description we have was a starting point that we could then take and run with; Cisco/openh264.org would be happiest deferring to us on the user info text and message (the part you want to update). So, yes, in fact, our UX are the right folks to be talking to, and Mozilla Product does own what this says (as much as anyone does).

I needinfo'd Darrin and Philipp so that the Desktop and Mobile versions of the plugin stay in sync.  We may simply want Matej (or one of our copywriters) to re-craft the text so it's clearer, but I leave that up to Darrin & Philipp.

Comment 7

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

Ok - so need Darrin (with possibly Matej's help) to clean up the language on the mobile side to provide more information to users (including benefit) of the plug-in. 

I'm going to file a separate bug (bug 1131067) because there should be 'options' listed (well, one option per desktop experience) that isn't showing up.

Comment 8

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

Will help with this but probably need some awesome copy help from Matej so NI-ing him here first.

Comment 9

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

It seems like my needinfo is no longer needed here :)

Comment 10

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

Clearing my flag for now. Please ping me when there's more info. Thanks.

Comment 11

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

I'm just going to have a stab at the copy then and we can discuss in this bug. But from the context that I have, it seems like something like this might be good :)

OpenH264 Video Codec by Mozilla
This pre-installed add-on from Mozilla uses the H.264 codec provided by Cisco Systems and openh264.org. We've created this to help ensure the quality of your video experience on the web (videos, video chats, etc).

Comment 12

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

I would flip the order so the why is up front:

OpenH264 Video Codec by Mozilla
This add-on is pre-installed by Mozilla to help ensure the quality of your video experience on the Web (videos, video chats, etc). It uses the H.264 codec provided by Cisco Systems and openh264.org.

Comment 13

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

Works for me! Thanks Matej

NI-ing Kar to get it moving.

Comment 14

[Maire Reavy [:mreavy]]

I do like the copy, but the reason we have an OpenH264 plugin is not to ensure the quality of the video experience for videos.  OpenH264 is currently used by WebRTC only for video calls (not recorded videos) with legacy endpoints or endpoints that prefer H.264.

We support OpenH264 because the WebRTC spec mandates H.264 support and because we choose to support interoperability with devices (especially older, legacy devices) that don't or won't support VP8.

Also, the source code is provided by openh264.org. Cisco contributes to openh264, but the code is open source.  Cisco distributes the openh264 binaries and pays the licensing fees.

Here's my suggested rewrite (feel free to tweak/rework the wording; I just want to make sure it's technically accurate): 

OpenH264 Video Codec by Cisco and openh264.org
This plugin is automatically installed by Mozilla to comply with the WebRTC specification and to enable WebRTC calls with devices that require the H.264 video codec. This plugin and its H.264 video codec are provided by Cisco and openh264.org. Visit http://www.openh264.org/ to view the codec source code and learn more about the implementation.

Comment 15

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

(In reply to Maire Reavy [:mreavy] (Plz needinfo me) from comment #14)
> 
> OpenH264 Video Codec by Cisco and openh264.org
> This plugin is automatically installed by Mozilla to comply with the WebRTC
> specification and to enable WebRTC calls with devices that require the H.264
> video codec. This plugin and its H.264 video codec are provided by Cisco and
> openh264.org. Visit http://www.openh264.org/ to view the codec source code
> and learn more about the implementation.

This looks great, but I wonder if we can remove the line "This plugin and its H.264 video codec are provided by Cisco and openh264.org." since it already says "OpenH264 Video Codec by Cisco and openh264.org" in the headline.

Comment 16

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

I think this is a fast improvement to what's (not!) in there, so happy to see this move forward. Copy looks great to me, too!

Comment 17

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

+1 - I think that's a wrap then!

NI-ing Maire

Comment 18

[Maire Reavy [:mreavy]]

I like Matej's suggestion in Comment 15 to remove "This plugin and its H.264 video codec are provided by Cisco and openh264.org." It's redundant given then top line description,and typically short and pithy works better for descriptions like this. 

I agree it's a wrap.

Comment 19

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

NI-ing Margaret here to get her eyes on this.. and possibly updating the string on Fennec hah

Comment 20

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Sounds like we just need an engineer to update this string:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/locales/en-US/chrome/plugins.properties#28

This is shared code, so any change here will change both desktop and mobile.

Comment 21

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Attachment: MozReview Request: bz://1131004/margaret

/r/5199 - Bug 1131004 - Provide a more detailed description for pre-installed OpenH264 add-on. r=Unfocused

Pull down this commit:

hg pull review -r 5945e8660197a1b99d8b7b6dea62215e1f19e28f

Comment 22

[:Margaret Leibovic]

I wrote a quick patch for this. One issue here is that the URL isn't link-ified. Unfocused, is there an easy way to include links in add-on descriptions? Or are we okay with this just being a text URL?

(You get review because I see you as the original reviewer for this string :)

Comment 23

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Margaret - Blair might be high latency right now. Anyone else you can ask?

Comment 24

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #23)
> Margaret - Blair might be high latency right now. Anyone else you can ask?

Gijs touched these files recently... maybe he can review it.

This is just a string change, so I feel like the UX/product sign-off we got above should be enough.

Comment 25

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

I touched this before, so i just did a quick drive-by.

Comment 26

[:Margaret Leibovic]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/d86b13be5d27

Comment 27

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Comment on attachment 8576146 [details]
MozReview Request: bz://1131004/margaret

r=gfritzsche in MozReview.

Comment 28

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

gps: I tried to steal the review in RB here, but the "ship it!" there never propagated here (maybe because i was not the originally requested reviewer).
Known issue?

Comment 29

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

The Ship It should have resulted in a r+ from a drive-by reviewer. We have test coverage for this :/

Comment 30

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d86b13be5d27

Comment 31

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

I see two reviews from gfritzsche on the parent review, but no comments at all here.  Looks like the mirroring broke, maybe due to an expired session.  gfritzsche, did you see any errors when you submitted the reviews?

Comment 32

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

No, i didn't see any errors and i *think* i just signed into RB when i went for the review here.

Comment 33

[Teodora Vermesan (:TeoVermesan)]

Tested with:
Device: Samsung Galaxy S5 (Android 4.4)
Build: Firefox for Android 39.0a1 (2015-03-24)
Name:OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc. 1.3
Description: This plugin is automatically installed by Mozilla to comply with the WebRTC specification and to enable WebRTC calls with devices that require the H.264 video codec. Visit http://www.openh264.org/ to view the codec source code and learn more about the implementation.

I mark status-firefox 39 as verified:

Comment 35

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1131004 - Provide a more detailed description for pre-installed OpenH264 add-on. r=Unfocused