Closed Bug 1557660 Opened 6 years ago Closed 4 years ago

Make application updates less annoying

Categories

(Toolkit :: Application Update, enhancement, P3)

Product:
Toolkit
Component:
Application Update
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1685594

People

(Reporter: me, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [iu_tracking])

About a year ago, the app.update.enabled and app.update.silent preferences got broken. I filed bug 1478872 about that. It has just been closed WONTFIX, suggesting that that would be properly done as a policy now, instead of a preference. I don’t agree with that last point, but here’s this feature request anyway, to restore what used to be possible.

Related is the DisableAppUpdate policy, which replaced app.update.enabled but is not equivalent in that it disables updates altogether.

What I seek is that updates be permitted, but that automatic update checking is not performed, so that the super-annoying “update available” doorhanger doesn’t ever pop up. (Part of what’s particularly annoying about it is its use of the accesskey D, for which I just filed bug 1557657.)

Suggested name: DisableAutomaticAppUpdate.

Agreed that this should be possible, and also that making it a policy is needlessly obtuse. Is making it a nightly/devedition-only preference an option? (cf. xpinstall.signatures.required)

Flags: needinfo?(robert.strong.bugs)
Priority: -- → P3

Sorry for taking so long to provide an update... I've been putting off commenting in this bug until after I was able to discuss changing this with the one of the people that would need to approve a change to the current behavior. It looks like we'll likely be able to make a couple of changes to make this less obnoxious but going back to just having a preference that behaved the same way as the old preference is very unlikely. The changes are by no means fully thought out or approved but there will likely be a pref that will lessen how often and / or how soon the notifications are displayed and there may be a new policy that would behave the same way as the old pref where it disabled the automatic update check. When I have more information I'll post it in this bug.

Flags: needinfo?(robert.strong.bugs)
Summary: Policy to disable automatic updates → Make application updates less annoying

Just wanted to contribute. I'm getting these things almost constantly it feels. Maybe it's because I have three users on my OSX that all share one Firefox app... but it's awful. I tried uninstalling completely, and then reinstalling. I've tried disabling everything I can. I've tried asking about it on Stack Overflow. I even briefly switching over to Chrome, but it didn't feel comfortable in the dev window.

At this point, I've learned to just accept that Firefox is another one of those things that must always be throwing alerts in my face and blocking me for my own safety.

But if there's any chance things could go back to the way they were before, I'd really like to voice my support. The last thing I want to happen when I open a new tab is getting blocked until I restart FF and forget what I was doing.

Okay, this is getting insane. I've started taking screen shots of all this to document just how bad it is.

Every single day I get one of these blockers. On all three of my user instances (one for prod, one for dev, one for personal use). Then I'll get a dialog box "Firefox needs to install a helper tool" that I have to put my password in for. Then it'll finally open, and a drop down comes from the right saying "There's updates!" and continues to until I click "download."

Today, it blocked me, and then instead of restarting, it said "Your old FF profile is invalid" and deleted all of my settings. So I had to log back into every single service I use.

This is really bad you guys. This is really, really, really bad. The worst viruses I ever downloaded off Kazaa did nothing more than give me popups, this literally blocks my work every day, multiple times a day (once for every account), and today it deleted all of my settings. It's worse than a virus.

What am I doing wrong?

Really though, there's very little difference between:
A. blocking users until they restart
B. crashing and restarting

Off a fresh install, FF is unusable for me.

@ShadyWillowCreek: what you’re describing is not what this bug is about at all. This bug is about the behaviour of the update doorhanger, which is not modal (thus it doesn’t block you from doing things), and has nothing to do with what actually happens when the updater runs.

This is mostly just a problem for Nightly, where a new update is available twice daily. It’s especially not a big deal in stable Firefox.

Is nightly the default for FF Dev?

It is which is why it updates so often... that way we get feedback on changes, crashes / crash fixes, etc.

@ShadyWillowCreek please stop posting pointless comments. None of that is relevant to this bug. See the commenting guidlines, particularly #4.

This issue still exists on Nightly. Can you share any updates on it?

I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I don't have any updates. Unfortunately, this bug is not currently on our list of top priorities.

Nightly is intended for a pretty specific group of people and can be painful for people that would be better served by a different distribution of Firefox. Since I don't know your situation, I can't know if Nightly is right for you, but let me run through my argument for why it might not be. I apologize in advance if it doesn't apply to you.

For users that are on Nightly because they want to experience new features that aren't on Release yet, I recommend Beta, which is exactly that.

But some users are on Nightly because they want to help test the latest version. These users can usually be broken down into two categories: Firefox developers and other dedicated contributors that want to test new code absolutely as soon possible, and more casual contributors that want to test new code, but aren't adamant that it be the absolute, very latest code available (often because they don't want to update constantly). This second, more casual group I generally try to steer towards Developer Edition because it only updates about twice a week.

Thank you for answering, Kirk. I am a developer myself and my reason for being on Nightly is in addition to just enjoying testing the latest code is that the Nightly builds have historically been (and I believe still are) the least restrictive towards the user. This has, for example, made the transition to WebExtensions for addons less painful for me. I am not sure if Developer Edition would have provided the same benefits, but I also do not believe updating twice a week as opposed to daily would have a great impact on my UX regarding this issue.

Being a developer, I would have possibly already tried patching this myself if it seemed like the patch were likely to be accepted, but that does not seem to be the case. I understand that on a project of this scale a decision to include a patch cannot be made quickly or lightly. The scale of the project is also what is stopping me from simply building it myself to resolve the issue locally. I will continue to hope Mozilla will eventually address it. Simply being allowed to limit the notification to the green arrow on the menu icon as opposed to a door hanger which I am forced to dismiss would suffice.

Whiteboard: [iu_tracking]

I noticed that here isn't a "vote" link on this bug as per "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting.html". Can enable it to get user feedback on it's importance?

(In reply to Komrad from comment #15)

I noticed that here isn't a "vote" link on this bug as per "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting.html". Can enable it to get user feedback on it's importance?

There's a vote button for me.

This bug, now some two years old, is still a regular annoyance for me. The whole lack of traction on this issue seems ironic given that some people choose not to update regularly because of seemingly arbitrary feature/option removal...

(In reply to Jason from comment #16)

(In reply to Komrad from comment #15)

I noticed that here isn't a "vote" link on this bug as per "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting.html". Can enable it to get user feedback on it's importance?

There's a vote button for me.

This bug, now some two years old, is still a regular annoyance for me. The whole lack of traction on this issue seems ironic given that some people choose not to update regularly because of seemingly arbitrary feature/option removal...

Same. Proton convinced me to turn off auto-updates.

I found the vote button. The faq page I linked say "Click on the "(vote)" link that appears on the right of the "Importance" fields. " , but the voting button was actually in the "Details" section. That section was collapsed for me. I expanded it and voted for this bug.

Oh, I forgot about this bug. I believe we already fixed this since this was filed.

This was the original request:

What I seek is that updates be permitted, but that automatic update checking is not performed, so that the super-annoying “update available” doorhanger doesn’t ever pop up.

This was done in Bug 1685594. The policy is called ManualAppUpdateOnly. There is a bit more information on it here.

Since I believe that this matches the original request quite closely, anyone whose needs are not met by this policy should file a new bug in the Toolkit::Application Update component.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 4 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.