1404575 - new add-on permission need link explaining then

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1445460

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Daniel Mota Leite]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20170925150345

Steps to reproduce:

With the new webextensions add-on, we get a popup when installing add-ons, listing the permissions required. The problem is that people do not understand what most of that mean nor have any place to try to learn.

What does "access to browser tabs" really mean? Or worse, what "access your data to all websites"!? can it read my passwords? read my posts? know my history? read my cookies for all sites ? track my mouse?

right now, the permissions may be there, but the info given is mostly unknown


Actual results:

Permissions list is shown, firefox assumes that the user understand what they mean! It is not even possible to see already installed add-ons permissions to try to find if they are kept the same.


Expected results:

In each permissions, one should have a link to a mozilla page explaining what the permissions give access to, what are the dangers and benefits those permissions. One must be able to see current installed add-ons permissions

Comment 1

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

This should start with UX.

Comment 2

[Markus Jaritz [:markus] (UX)]

Attachment: AMO-extension-permission-details.PNG

This seams twofold:
- concise short copy for each permission to use in the install flow doorhanger
- detailed explanation for each permission, offered to people who want more context

I do not think we need to link to a description of each permission from within the flow if we provide that information on AMO already. We could use the permission overlay we have there to offer details on the permission this extension requires. (as shown in the attachment) With this, every person that wants more details, can get those before installing the extension. Or come back to it if they do want more detail than is shown in the doorhanger.

Comment 3

[Markus Jaritz [:markus] (UX)]

Scott, I've seen you are already on https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/498#issuecomment-333202382.
Could you please also take a look at this, and extend the descriptions we provide for the overlay on AMO?
Seams having detailed descriptions of what permissions are about, would help users better trust their extensions.

Comment 4

[sdevaney]

(In reply to Markus Jaritz [:designakt] (UX) from comment #3)
> Scott, I've seen you are already on
> https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/498#issuecomment-333202382.
> Could you please also take a look at this, and extend the descriptions we
> provide for the overlay on AMO?
> Seams having detailed descriptions of what permissions are about, would help
> users better trust their extensions.

Hi, Markus. Perhaps we should have a meeting about Permissions messaging in general? Any changes to the manner in which we currently have Permissions messaging framed could be quite large in scope (you change one thing you change all the things). Also, there's evidence out there some folks prefer what we have in place. One example today from the exciting world of Twitter:

https://twitter.com/andychilton/status/915696945846296576