251289 - Version comparison prevents use of extensions which may otherwise work

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Thomas Rutter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040712 Firefox/0.9.1+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040712 Firefox/0.9.1+

The version comparison for Firefox's extension manager prevents access to
extensions if they are not marked as being written for this version, even if the
extension might still be compatible.  There is no way of ignoring this 'warning'
and installing the extension anyway.

Effectively, this 'cripples' extensions because it means that existing
extensions will one day stop working at all simply because I upgrade my browser,
even if they would otherwise be compatible.

For instance, let's say in the future I am running Firefox 1.4 and I want to
ugprade to Firefox 1.6.  However, the extension I am depending on is marked as
compatible with Firefox 0.9-1.4 and has not been updated.  It means that Firefox
is preventing me from using the extension simply because the extension writer
has not created a new version.

Firefox is placing unnecessary burden/blame on extension authors for extensions
not working after Firefox is upgraded, whereas in most cases all that is needed
is to update the version number in the extension.

I should be able to override the version detecting if my version of Firefox is
*newer* so that if an extension is marked as for a previous version of Firefox,
then I can still install the extension if I ignore a warning message.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Download and install Sage 1.1 (see example URL) on a Firefox 0.9.0+ branch build.

Actual Results:  
An error message appears telling me that I cannot install the extension, because
the extension will only work on Firefox 0.7 to 0.9.

Expected Results:  
A warning message should appear that the extension may not work properly as it
was written for versions 0.7 to 0.9, and I have 0.9.0+.  The warning should have
buttons "Cancel" and "Ignore".

Comment 1

[Bill Mason]

This basically reads like 248653, particularly bug 248653 comment 2

Comment 2

[Thomas Rutter]

This problem is different to the one described in bug #248653, as it questions
the validity of using upper version limits at all.

However if bug #248653 were fixed by "allow forced install" then it would solve
this problem too.

Comment 3

[alanjstr]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 251148 ***

Comment 4

[Thomas Rutter]

In reading through bug #251148, it appears that this bug is different.  As far
as I understand, bug #251148 suggests making the maxversion optional in the
extension itself, so it's a bug which concern extension developers.

This bug concerns the way that maxversion is treated by firefox's extension
manager, and thus it's a bug which concerns the end user.  I believe that these
are separate issues and regardless of what is done with regards to bug #251148,
I think the user still needs a way of overriding this detection at their end,
when the extension is installed.

I think that a user should not be at the mercy of either the extension author OR
update.mozilla.org to update the maxversion setting on their extension when
another version of the browser rolls around.  Even if the extension author or
update.mozilla.org are very efficient in this manner, I still think that it is
wrong to disallow access to an extension based on what the extension says.  It
smacks to me of 'product activation', a process which I am very much against.  I
believe that a user should not be prevented from using software which is
installed on his computer and might otherwise run were it not for this
back-to-base restriction.

I consider this as a bug rather than an enhancement because previously, I could
install any extension I liked without being blocked access to using it when I
upgraded Firefox.  I would be strongly in favour of either removing this new
feature, or adding an "Ignore - Install anyway" button.

Comment 5

[Ryan Polk (Quark)]

Thomas Rutter: there is already a way for the end user to install an extension
not labeled as compatible.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/extensions/update.html <-- Read the
"Power Tip: Installing Extensions You Know Are Compatible" section.

I vote for invalidating this because users should NOT have any "normal" way of
installing old extensions.  It should be clear to anyone using this method that
it is a workaround that can lead to issues, as extensions can easily break stuff
and extensions are easily broken with new versions of Firefox.

Comment 6

[Thomas Rutter]

I'll agree to disagree, for the reasons in my previous post.  I believe that
this restriction is as much of an inconvenience for an end user as for a power user.

Comment 7

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

If the extension is compatible with the current release, the extension author
should make that update to his extension. This is not a bug and we don't intend
to change this.

Comment 8

[Aaron P]

Unfortunately, not all extension authors are still around to update their
extension to the latest version. When this happens, the extension at AMO/mozdev
goes effectively out of date and you have to find the version-hacked extension
somewhere else, such as http://www.extensionsmirror.nl 

P.S. For those wanting to force an extension past the min/maxversion check, look
at the instructions at http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=973 --
the Nightly Tester Tools extension a good solution for the lazy extension user.