259066 - You can't update Thunderbird with extensions if using Firefox 0.9x

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Public Pages, defect)

Description

[Andrew Acer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.8

Firefox has a special screen whenever a file with .xpi extension is loaded.  It
does not allow you to download the file to a specific directory - only install
the file.  This would be fine if you could just right click a link to all .xpi
files on the update website and click "save as," but unfortunately all
extensions go through the "/install.php?id=170&vid=300" interface.  This leads
to firefox trying to install all Thunderbird updates.  Without a direct link to
all Thunderbird extensions, which is not provided on update.mozilla.org, you
have to use a different browser than Firefox to download Thunderbird extensions.

The interface is great for installing Firefox extensions, it's not so great for
installing Thunderbird ones.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. You want to install an extension for Thunderbird
2. Go to website, find extension, click "Download Now"
3. A screen to install that *Thunderbird* extension in Firefox comes up.  You
get an error when Firefox figures out that the extension isn't for itself.

Actual Results:  
Got error as described above.

Expected Results:  
Let me download the .xpi file to a directory, instead of trying to install it
into Firefox, the wrong program.

Comment 1

[Wolf [:wolf]]

You're perfectly capable of right-clicking and choosing save link as... on those
links. That's the recommended way to do it. :-) You won't save install.php as
theres a redirection involved.
There's tooltips to indicate this (Right-Click to Download), and on the more
info pages, instructions for thunderbird.

I realize the situation with Firefox grabbing Thunderbird XPIs is annoying.
There's not currently a workaround to force-save the extensions/themes for
Thunderbird as ideally there should be, this tends to be a client-side issue,
the website cannot target thunderbird and cannot avoid firefox or mozilla from
capturing the xpinstall triggers. This has been discussed in another bug before,
which resulted in the instrucutions being added only.

Comment 2

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

Could there not be a "Save As..." option in the install screen, next to "Install
Now", which would cancel the installation, and open a filepicker to save the
extension to disc?