258989 - Allow forced/override install of extensions/themes

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Aaron Kaluszka]

I'm getting sick of running into this problem with each new point release.

From bug 248653 comment 2:

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 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Ben says this isn't going to happen. 

Comment 2

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

This sounds like perfect territory for an Extension Manager extension. I'd
encourage you to persue that at the Mozillazine Extensions forum.