496120 - Add the possibility to include an uninstaller for external installed addons

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Extensions installed via Registry can not be uninstalled because Firefox don't know how to do that and that is the reason why the uninstall button for such addons is disabled.

How about the possibility that such an addon can optional add an external uninstaller that Firefox could call if the user wants to uninstall this addon.
The uninstall button could be enabled for such external addons.

Comment 1

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

I think this would be ok but I don't think this removes the need to be able to provide uninstall (even though it might just hide the add-on) for add-ons that don't provide a separate binary for uninstalling. It would likely be appropriate to mimic the Add / Remove Programs behavior in that it removes the entry even if the binary doesn't exist... not sure what would be best if the user clicks uninstall and then the binary doesn't complete due to it being a badly coded uninstaller or the user clicks cancel. With that in mind, perhaps it might be better not to offer this.

Comment 2

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

I thought about this some over the previous few days and I think it falls into the problem that we likely don't want to make changes for all users, which I'd expect this feature is likely to do. I think the add-ons UI in Firefox should generally only offer to do stuff for the current user.

Comment 3

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

Per comment #1 and comment #2 I think this should be wontfix

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

It's no problem for me if you don't like this idea and i will wontfix this.
This is just an idea about the existing issue that there are many applications outside that install extensions without asking like .Net, Java.
If you think about an automatic update of windows components in the background you should not be surprised that MS doesn't ask during the installation.

Just look at the blog postings about the net addon and we can be happy that they think that it's Microsofts bad idea that the uninstall button is disabled but if I'm not wrong this is our fault that you can not uninstall it and that there is no good way for an extension that is installed via the registry to offer an solution for uninstalling.

That only the addon is uninstalled for the current user is something the uninstaller has to take care about (or not) IMO.

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> It's no problem for me if you don't like this idea and i will wontfix this.
> This is just an idea about the existing issue that there are many applications
> outside that install extensions without asking like .Net, Java.
> If you think about an automatic update of windows components in the background
> you should not be surprised that MS doesn't ask during the installation.

It's not a bad idea, one I had myself in fact, but I think for now the preferred option will be to provide our own pseudo-uninstall support.

> That only the addon is uninstalled for the current user is something the
> uninstaller has to take care about (or not) IMO.

I agree. But then we have to rely on third parties providing a consistent behaviour which I don't think gets us anywhere.