248653 - Allow forced install of extensions

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 249251

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Aaron Kaluszka]

If you try to use Mozilla Update with a trunk build, you are not able to install
any of the extensions or themes because of the 0.9.0+ build number.  This makes
it impossible to use those extensions and themes with a trunk build.  Either "+"
builds should be included in the revision check or there should be a way to
override the check.

Comment 1

[Ali Ebrahim]

This bug is valid, but it's not a blocker. Reducing to critical severity,
because it's been known to hang Firefox sometimes during the finishing extension
install thingy.

Comment 2

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

This is definitely needed and, in my opinion, needed quickly.  I disagree that
it is not a blocker.

The entire reason for this check is to prevent novice users from running into
difficulty by installing extensions that have not been verified to work with the
version of Firefox they are runing.

However, the problem is that the check prevents you from verifying that the
extension is compatable without releasing a version of the extension that claims
to be comapable before you actually ever verify that it is.

The problem is that the extension devloper, in most cases, does not have the
facitilities to test the extension on all the supported Firefox platforms so
must depend on others, so there is no way to get widespread verification done
without distributing a version of the extension that will actually install.

So the extension developers are forced to deploy a version that will install
before testing is complete in order to get the testing done so you are then
faced with the situation where a novice user could get themselves into trouble
by installing an incomaptble extension, which is the situation we were trying to
prevent in the first place.

What we need is to have a warning pop-up with a disclaimer like:

                              WARNING

You are about to install a theme/extension which has not been verified to
work corectly with the version of Firefox that you have installed.  Installing
this theme/extension may result in Firefox not opereating correctly.  BLAH BLAH BLAH

       Continue                        Cancel

It might also not be a bad idea to have this override be controlled by a
preference that defaults to false so that the current behaviour of no chance to
override is the default and the pop-up giving you the choice only appears if you
select some preference.  This could either be a prefernce avialable in the
update section of the Advanced Options in the UI or a preference not available
in the UI but settable by the user so that extension/theme developers could tell
users how to set the preference in order to test their extension/theme for
campatability.

Comment 3

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

OH, my mistake.  You changed the severity from blocker.  I thought you cleared a
blocking flag.  Ok I agree with that.  Nominting this bug to block 1.0.

Sorry for bugspam.

Comment 4

[alanjstr]

Dupe bug 249251?

Comment 5

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 249251 ***

Comment 6

[Aaron Kaluszka]

Bug 258989 opened regarding comment 2.