1304933 - Change the Nightly stub installer label as it supports 64-bit as well

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Websites :: other.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

According to a recent email thread, "Windows 32-bit (Express)" should be changed to "Windows 32-bit and 64-bit (Express)" once Bug 797208 is solved.

Comment 1

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

nightly.mozilla.org is going away once Bug 1301650 is solved, thus this bug is probably WONTFIX.

The problem is, the express/stub installers are not listed on the current /all/ download pages. Do we want to have them all?

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/all/

Comment 2

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

The stub installer don't seem useful to me for a population of power-users and if you are a Nightly user you are a power-user so I don't think we should add an additional column just for the Windows stub installer for Nightly on the /all/

Comment 3

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Got it.

Comment 4

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Kohei, since you won't be adding stub installers to the /all/ download pages, can we reopen this bug to change the nightly.mozilla.org page's "Windows 32-bit (Express)" label to "Windows 32-bit and 64-bit (Express)"? The change to make the stub installer support both 32- and 64-bit (bug 797208) landed in Nightly today.

Comment 5

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

But nightly.mozilla.org will be gone shortly... Should we list stubs on the /all/ download pages after all?

Comment 6

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #5)
> But nightly.mozilla.org will be gone shortly... Should we list stubs on the
> /all/ download pages after all?

I am not convinced there is an interest to be honest but I am not necessarily against it, Chris what kind of feedback are you expecting from proposing a stub installer instead of a full installer to future Nightly users? We are not proposing stub installers for download on other channels for /all pages

Comment 7

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #5)
> But nightly.mozilla.org will be gone shortly... Should we list stubs on the
> /all/ download pages after all?

How will users download Nightly once nightly.mozilla.org is gone?
All we want to make sure is that whatever main ways users use to download the Nightly stub installer, they get the right information (either not mention 32 bit anymore or as Chris suggested "Windows 32-bit and 64-bit (Express)")

The new stub installer that defaults to 64 bit Firefox is now available on nightly.mozilla.org although the link used to download it is labelled "Windows 32-bit", this is wrong info we give to the users.
ALso the downloaded file is named "firefox-53.0a1.en-US.win32.installer-stub.exe" - we should either remove "win32" from the file name or use a label that is agnostic ("win" or "win32_64" ?).

Comment 8

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Desktop Nightly is already listed on https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ and nightly.mozilla.org will soon be redirected there, hopefully next week. (Bug 1301642)

Android Nightly will also be added to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/android/ shortly. (Bug 1320098)

So we can continue downloading Nightlies from public pages, other than stub installers.

I personally want to see stubs as well on https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly/all/ but this page has already been messed up with 5 columns... Needs a better UX to accommodate another. (Any enhancements can be done later though.)

Another question is: Do we want to serve the stub installer from the green download button on the channel page, instead of the full installer?

Comment 9

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Thanks for the clarifications, so I assume that https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ will become the main place for users to find Firefox Nightly (i.e what googling "firefox nightly" gets you to)

> Another question is: Do we want to serve the stub installer from the green
> download button on the channel page, instead of the full installer?

Beta and dev edition let users download the stub installer on https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ but nightly provides the full installer. 
I assume that the stub installer is the preferred way for all Firefox downloads given this is what gets used on the main Firefox download page so it seems to make sense not to have an exception for Nightly but maybe this was done for a good reason that I ignore!

Comment 10

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #9)
> Thanks for the clarifications, so I assume that
> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ will become the main
> place for users to find Firefox Nightly (i.e what googling "firefox nightly"
> gets you to)
> 

Yes, we will keep using nightly.mozilla.org as a vanity URL to promote nightly downloads but it will lead to the pre-release channel page on www.mozilla.org (where we benefit from l10n, up to date templates, security patches, metrics...).

Comment 11

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #9)
> Beta and dev edition let users download the stub installer on
> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ but nightly provides
> the full installer. 
> I assume that the stub installer is the preferred way for all Firefox
> downloads given this is what gets used on the main Firefox download page so
> it seems to make sense not to have an exception for Nightly but maybe this
> was done for a good reason that I ignore!

Pascal, do you know why the /channel download page points to Beta's and Dev Edition's stub installers but Nightly's (32-bit) full installer? Starting with 53, the stub installer will automatically select 32- or 64-bit Firefox for compatible users. We are trying to increase the number of users that get 64-bit Firefox.

Comment 12

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc (PTO until April 26)]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #11)
> (In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #9)
> > Beta and dev edition let users download the stub installer on
> > https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/ but nightly provides
> > the full installer. 
> > I assume that the stub installer is the preferred way for all Firefox
> > downloads given this is what gets used on the main Firefox download page so
> > it seems to make sense not to have an exception for Nightly but maybe this
> > was done for a good reason that I ignore!
> 
> Pascal, do you know why the /channel download page points to Beta's and Dev
> Edition's stub installers but Nightly's (32-bit) full installer? Starting
> with 53, the stub installer will automatically select 32- or 64-bit Firefox
> for compatible users. We are trying to increase the number of users that get
> 64-bit Firefox.

There is no specific reason apart that the download logic behind versions with formal releases is not the same as nightly as download.mozilla.org doesn't support nightly and that was not mentionned as a requirement during the code review when we added Nightly to this page, we reused the link generation code from the /all page. 

We could point to the stub installer for nightly for Windows as well and morph that bug to that purpose, note though that we have very few Nightly downloads per day, like 70 a day so that would probably not impact the number of 64 bits Firefox users in a measurable way.

Comment 13

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Pascal Chevrel:pascalc from comment #12)
> There is no specific reason apart that the download logic behind versions
> with formal releases is not the same as nightly as download.mozilla.org
> doesn't support nightly and that was not mentionned as a requirement during
> the code review when we added Nightly to this page, we reused the link
> generation code from the /all page. 

That makes sense.

> We could point to the stub installer for nightly for Windows as well and
> morph that bug to that purpose

Which bug # is that?

> note though that we have very few Nightly
> downloads per day, like 70 a day so that would probably not impact the
> number of 64 bits Firefox users in a measurable way.

hmm. 70 a day is not a very big number. <:) So changing the Nightly installer link is not a high priority, but it would be nice to consistently default to the (32/64-bit aware) stub installer for all channels.

Comment 14

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Filed Bug 1320662 to change the Nightly download button. Closing this then!

Comment 15

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #14)
> Filed Bug 1320662 to change the Nightly download button. Closing this then!

Sounds good. Thanks, Kohei and Pascal!