1190375 - Create whitelist (or blacklist) for Android Auto Backup

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

For background see bug 1185920.

Android M+ will automatically backup app data if targetSdkVersion is set to 23 (and we are building with that SDK). The app data is automatically restored if a user changes or upgrades a device. We are expecting some problems if all app data (including accounts) is restored.

We'd like to avoid disabling auto backup. So let's define a (minimal?) whitelist of things that can be in a backup and do not cause any problem when being restored on a (new) device. We can extend this list later but we will need something to start with in order to support the new SDK.

Resources:
 * http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2015/07/auto-backup-for-apps-made-simple.html
 * https://developer.android.com/preview/backup/index.html#configuring

Comment 1

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

I don't think this needs to be tracking 41: Auto backup will only be enabled for builds that have targetSdkVersion set to 23. Before we can do that we need to fix a bunch of things to be able to build with SDK 23 (bug 1183061). And if we do that we will have to deal with the new permission model. And finally if we have done all this then I don't think we will uplift all this to 41?

Comment 2

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

See comment above.

Comment 3

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

From the docs: 25MB limit per app / per device.

Comment 4

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

We've been discussing this on the mailing list:
https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/mobile-firefox-dev/2015-October/001541.html

Comment 5

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1190375 - Disable Android (Auto) Backup. r?mfinkle

Bug 1190375 - Disable Android (Auto) Backup. r?mfinkle

Comment 6

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

As discussed on the mailing list this patch disables auto backup to faster unlock targetSdkVersion=23. I'll file follow-up bugs for the ideas mentioned on the mailing list.

Comment 7

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

Comment on attachment 8678845 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1190375 - Disable Android (Auto) Backup. r?mfinkle

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/23261/#review20757

Yes, we are disabling auto-backup. Make it so.

Comment 8

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/d5e6dc2b693ced39ed021ca2c4f1c15539a32547
Bug 1190375 - Disable Android (Auto) Backup. r=mfinkle

Comment 9

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

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d5e6dc2b693c

Comment 12

[morrison_constable]

How is the move to SDK23 going? I am still in the process of switching devices and while I will leave out the words I could use to convey my frustration with the process of migrating a Firefox session with over 100 tabs open from device to device (I have started doing this manually, as I need the history to each tab --which Sync doesn't provide-- and have wasted enough time finding a way around this). On the PC, the sessionstore* files makes this SO easy. I find it incomprehensible that I have to go through migrating these tabs manually for sake of a single line in a config file. PLEASE tell me that the whitelist and associated changes to move to SDK23 are coming soon. Don't want to go through this again! If nothing else, surely there is a way to prevent Android's cloud backup from restoring data (or perhaps have Firefox dump this info upon first launch post this action) and still enable those that care to use ADB to get the data off their own phones.

Comment 13

[Florent Cayré]

Small up here. adb backup having an option to force application backup is arguably an option.

However, being able to restore Firefox on a new device (or even the same one after flashing the ROM for instance), is a very useful missing feature.

The debates in above-mentioned thread mainly discusses Sync account, which backup is almost useless at best (users can setup sync quickly nowadays), and more probably harmful from the security point of view. Could we exclude all sensitive data from the auto-backup and make a move forward?

Could the above-mentioned follow-up bugs (if they were actually created) be linked to the present bug?