333121 - BROKEN_PLUGIN_HACK can be removed

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Mark Mentovai]

Bug 313347 introduced the BROKEN_PLUGIN_HACK because a broken version of Flash was included with the initial shipment of Mac OS X for x86.  Macrodobe has made a new version of the plugin available that is free of the bugs in question, and this new version is included with Mac OS X 10.4.6.

For the trunk and 1.8 branch, the BROKEN_PLUGIN_HACK should be backed out.  Although most x86 users are expected to be at or above 10.4.6 by the time of a Firefox 2 release, it may be worth noting in the Firefox 2 release notes that Flash will crash on 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 on x86 unless the OS is updated or a new Flash plugin is installed.

Because a release from the 1.8.0 branch is imminent, and 10.4.6 was only released in the past week, the hack should remain on the 1.8.0 branch.  The hack disables itself when a fixed plugin is present, as it is on 10.4.6.

Comment 1

[Mark Mentovai]

Attachment: Back hack out

We'll just do this on the trunk for now and can revisit it for the 1.8 branch at a later date.

Comment 2

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

Comment on attachment 218307 [details] [diff] [review]
Back hack out

sr=pink

Comment 3

[Mark Mentovai]

Fixed on trunk.

Comment 4

[Mark Mentovai]

We probably want this for 1.8.1, but I don't want to land it yet because it will cause people who don't yet have the updated Flash plugin to crash.

The updated plugin is available as a standalone download at:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/preview/8/flashplayer8_universal_preview.dmg

It is also included in Mac OS X 10.4.6/x86 and updaters to 10.4.6/x86.

Comment 5

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

Do we want to just blacklist that specific plugin, or something, on Intel Macs?  I hear we can do that now, but check with robstrong...

Comment 6

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Plugin blocklisting isn't added yet. It is a lower priority than other alpha 2 work I am doing.

Comment 7

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

What's the status on whether this should be in 1.8.1?  If it needs to go into 1.8.1, it should probably happen soon.

Comment 8

[Mark Mentovai]

Including this means that the stated minimum OS version for Gecko on Mac x86 should be 10.4.6, since attempts to load Flash will crash on earlier releases unless the user updated the Flash plugin manually.  If we think, as I do, that most Mac x86 users will be at or above 10.4.6 at the time Firefox 2 ships, we should get this patch in on the 1.8.1 branch.

Comment 9

[Mike Schroepfer]

Is there an advantage (besides code cleanup) to take this out of the 1.8.1 branch?    
Given that 10.4.4/.5 are not that old if this isn't doing any harm it seems better to not crash on those systems.   

Comment 10

[Josh Aas]

I think we should just leave it in for now. Cleanup is pretty much the only advantage.