1311420 - Consider notifications to users about plugin deprecation

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Benjamin Smedberg]

We've stopped loading all plugins that aren't Flash. Users will experience this as having those plugins just not show up any more in the following places:

* addon manager
* about:plugins
(plugins are currently not shown in about:support, which is weird)

I'm confident that we shouldn't proactively tell users that other plugins are gone, but I want advice about whether, if users go looking for missing plugins, we should have explanations.

Bram, NI? to you for this, and if we do need some kind of warning/explanation/notice, please help provide some text/design.

Comment 1

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg] from comment #0)
> I'm confident that we shouldn't proactively tell users that other plugins
> are gone, but I want advice about whether, if users go looking for missing
> plugins, we should have explanations.

Where would users "go looking for missing plugins"? Looking in product (e.g. about:addons) or on SUMO?

We could list the unsupported plugins in about:addons and about:plugins, but gray them out and include a message about them not being supported.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The addon manager or about:plugins, yes. It's theoretically possible to do the disabled-grey thing, but it's really different and would require a lot of code which would be hard to add.

Comment 3

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Yes. We should definitely have some sort of an informational area on top of about:addons#plugins and about:plugins (maybe about:support?) that lets users know what had happened.

But now I’m wondering about the best way to convey the message.

Should it be something along the lines of “Feels like you’re missing a plugin or two on this list? It’s because they’re incompatible. [Learn more]” – and this Learn More should lead to SUMO. Alternatively, we can write a longer message and then won’t need to link to SUMO.

Or should it be something along the lines of “The plugins [name1], [name2], [name3] and [name4] are unsupported and have been deactivated. [Learn more]” – Learn More again links to SUMO.

Referring to prior work that Markus Jaritz had done on about:addons and e10s, what they did was to grey out each affected add-on and present users with a link to search AMO for alternatives. I know that we can’t easily do the same with plugins, but it’s still worth looking up?

Comment 4

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Benjamin, Bram says we should definitely show a message on about:addons#plugins, about:plugins, and maybe about:support. Who can own the engineering work for this? We have about two weeks until 52 merges to Aurora.

If we want to implement this, we will also need Bram or someone to write a more detailed description of the proposed UI changes and text.

Also, we probably need to create a SUMO page explaining the plugin EOL.

Comment 5

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Technically it will be very difficult to create a list of name1, name2, name3, so I'd like to avoid that option. The notification at the top of about:plugins is trivial once we have wording. The notification on the addon manager is also pretty easy, I think: I'd like some design guidance about what colors/appearance to use.

Comment 6

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Attachment: about:addons - deprecated plugins - i01

Comment 7

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Attachment: about:plugins - deprecated plugins - i01

Comment 8

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

The design I used for the alert box is fairly simple and derived from the <vbox class="alert"> used on about:addons. To see it, try opening the “Services” section. I don’t have any services installed and can see this box.

The difference is: the notification box spans the width of the column, and the button appears on the right side of the text instead of underneath it.

For about:plugins, the design is exactly the same.

And the text reads:
“Some plugins are not shown on this page because they are no longer supported by Firefox. [Learn More]”

The “Learn More” link leading to an explanatory SUMO article.

What do you think?

Comment 9

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Argh, I lost a comment somewhere. I'm trying to decide whether to nitpick the text. For some (many?) users, this text is at least misleading because they don't *have* anything but Flash.

I wonder if we could be more generic or playful: "Missing something? Some plugins are no longer supported by Firefox. [Learn More]"

Comment 10

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Can we make the notification conditional based on whether the user actually has plugins other than Flash installed (and hidden)?

Comment 11

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

The "Learn more" button can link to the following SUMO URL, where %VERSION%, %OS%, and %LOCALE% are replaced with the appropriate values at run-time:

https://support.mozilla.org/1/firefox/%VERSION%/%OS%/%LOCALE%/npapi

Comment 12

[Benjamin Smedberg]

> Can we make the notification conditional based on whether the user actually
> has plugins other than Flash installed (and hidden)?

Not without significant additional work, no.

Comment 13

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg] from comment #9)
> I wonder if we could be more generic or playful: "Missing something? Some
> plugins are no longer supported by Firefox. [Learn More]"

Sorry for the late reply, as I was away over the weekend. This sounds better and shorter than my version, so let’s go with this.

Comment 14

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Attachment: Bug 1311420 - Add a notice to the addon manager and about:plugins about NPAPI deprecation,

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/94802/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/94802/

Comment 15

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Just a note: after reviewing the existing UI, I made "learn more" a link instead of a button. That matches several other learn more links in the addon manager, and follows a UI guideline I found in the code that buttons operate within the addon manager tab: links open external sites in another tab.

Comment 16

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg] from comment #15)
> Just a note: after reviewing the existing UI, I made "learn more" a link
> instead of a button.

Good call. Let’s just make sure that the link is either right aligned (https://d17oy1vhnax1f7.cloudfront.net/items/3w401T1U1Z081T3a1L3b/drm-learn-more.3H3n1o3y2v3n.PNG) or separated by a bit of space if it’s left aligned (https://d17oy1vhnax1f7.cloudfront.net/items/3i1J0E2R0R0j2C2a151D/tracking-protection-learn-more.0C393J3X3U3r.PNG)

Comment 17

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Comment on attachment 8813385 [details]
Bug 1311420 - Add a notice to the addon manager and about:plugins about NPAPI deprecation,

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/94802/#review95322

Comment 18

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/564fbfb9ca45
Add a notice to the addon manager and about:plugins about NPAPI deprecation, r=felipe

Comment 19

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/564fbfb9ca45

Comment 20

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 8813385 [details]
Bug 1311420 - Add a notice to the addon manager and about:plugins about NPAPI deprecation,

Approval Request Comment
[Feature/Bug causing the regression]: Disabling non-Flash plugins, bug npapi-eol which is for 52.
[User impact if declined]: Users may be more confused why their plugins no longer show up in the addon manager
[Is this code covered by automated tests?]: no, it is a visual change
[Has the fix been verified in Nightly?]: not yet
[Needs manual test from QE? If yes, steps to reproduce]: 
[List of other uplifts needed for the feature/fix]: none
[Is the change risky?]: I doubt it; it's primarily a frontend warning.
[String changes made/needed]: Added strings are present. We're asking to add these late because UX believes this warning is an important part of informing users about the plugin changes.

Comment 21

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Stefan, since I'm asking for uplift can you please do a quick verification that this is showing up correctly in the addon manager and about:plugins in tomorrow's nightly?

Comment 22

[Stefan [:StefanG_QA]]

Ok, not a problem. Me and team will look tomorrow into it. 

THank you.

Comment 23

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

I'm seeing the message in about:plugins on nightly; is the "Learn more" link supposed to 404?

NI flod because of the string change in aurora, which would need l10n sign-off.

Comment 24

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

(In reply to Julien Cristau [:jcristau] from comment #23)
> NI flod because of the string change in aurora, which would need l10n
> sign-off.

I suppose we need to take it.

Comment 25

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Yes, the link will 404 for now: we typically don't deploy SUMO content until the feature hits beta.

Comment 26

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Comment on attachment 8813385 [details]
Bug 1311420 - Add a notice to the addon manager and about:plugins about NPAPI deprecation,

npapi deprecation notice for aurora52

Comment 27

[Stefan [:StefanG_QA]]

Everything looks good. Tested on Windows 7, 8.1, 10, Ubuntu 16.04, MAC 10.12.

Comment 28

[DJ-Leith]

Name            Firefox
Version         53.0a1
Build ID        20161130030206
Update Channel  nightly
User Agent      Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
OS              Windows_NT 6.1

I can confirm the 404.

In my case, en-GB, the "Learn More." link (that will be the SUMO page - that currently is 404)
is 'attempting to reach':

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/npapi-plugins?as=u&utm_source=inproduct

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg]  from comment #24)
> Yes, the link will 404 for now: we typically don't deploy SUMO content until the feature hits beta.

Will there be a localised page at SUMO?
Is there a bug to create the SUMO page?
Should that bug be linked to this bug?

DJ-Leith

Comment 29

[Benjamin Smedberg]

There will be a localized page, cpeterson is working on that with SUMOfolk. They typically don't use bugzilla to track their work, though.

Comment 30

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/fa39ccc915c1

Comment 31

[Alice Wyman]

(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg [:bsmedberg] from comment #29)
> There will be a localized page, cpeterson is working on that with SUMOfolk.
> They typically don't use bugzilla to track their work, though.

The page is up: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/npapi-plugins/

Comment 32

[Andrei Vaida [:avaida]]

Flagging this for verification on 52 and 53. Paul, you might want to look into this.

Comment 33

[Paul Silaghi, QA [:pauly]]

(In reply to Stefan [:StefanG_QA] from comment #27)
> Everything looks good. Tested on Windows 7, 8.1, 10, Ubuntu 16.04, MAC 10.12.
Verified on Fx 53 by Stefan.
Also verified by me on Fx 52b5.

Comment 34

[DJ-Leith]

From: Bug 1346230

> Bug 1311420 added a plugin deprecation notification which links to support.mozilla.org 
> 
> But the link only works when Firefox is configured with English as the default language.
> 
> 1. Create a new profile
> 2. Go to about:plugins and click the "Learn more" link
> 3. You are redirected to
https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Problems-with-add-ons-plugins-or/Why-do-Java-Silverlight-Adobe-Acrobat-and-other-plugins-no/ta-p/31069,
> which works
> 4. Clear recent history
> 5. Go to about:preferences#content, and add a new language (e.g. Abkhazian) to the top of the language list.
> 6. Go to about:plugins and click the "Learn more" link
> 7. You are redirected to https://support.mozilla.org/kb/npapi-plugins ,
> which gives a 404 error and says "The page you are trying to access was not found. Please check
> your URL for typos and try again."
> 
> If that article is not translated to other languages, it should show the English version instead of the error.

I agree, at the very least the English page should be shown.

I did fear, (see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1311420#c28 - above)
that there might be issues with localisation.
Was this tested in 'non English' versions?

Setting ni to alert 'the SUMO Team'.

DJ-Leith

Comment 35

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Thanks, DJ-Leith! This is bad. The "Learn more" link needs to be fixed. The plugin SUMO page has been translated into some languages, so we might need to new solution for the redirects.

Comment 36

[Alice Wyman]

I'm not part of the SUMO team (I'm a contributor with KB reviewer and site moderator permissions). I'll Need Info Joni Savage since she's the SUMO content manager. See also http://logs.glob.uno/?c=mozilla%23sumo&s=10+Mar+2017&e=10+Mar+2017 which links to bug 1324426

Comment 37

[Alice Wyman]

NeedInfo cleared. Comment 34 referred to a Lithium redirect issue(bug 1324426). Sumo has switched back to Kitsune.