527892 - Replacing a search engine/tool/plugin not user friendly

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.5

When trying to replace/update a search engine/tool/plugin Firefox throws an error:

"Firefox could not install the search plugin from "https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/latest/14787/addon-14787-latest.xml?src=addondetail" because an engine with the same name already exists."

If a user wants to replace a search plugin, currently the user first needs to go to the "Manage Search Engines" menu, then find the search plugin he/she wants to replace (which can be difficult if the number of search plugins is very large), delete it and then install again.

It would be much more user friendly to offer the user the option to replace the existing search plugin.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14787 (example)
2. Click the "+ Add to Firefox" button.
3. See the error message appear.
Actual Results:  
Error message thrown:

"Firefox could not install the search plugin from "https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/latest/14787/addon-14787-latest.xml?src=addondetail" because an engine with the same name already exists."

Expected Results:  
A more user friendly message would be:

""https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/latest/14787/addon-14787-latest.xml?src=addondetail" is trying to install a search plugin with the same name as one that already exists. Are you sure you want to replace it?"

Provide a yes/no choice.

As a developer of search plugins this would save me a lot of time, but it also avoids problems when you tell normal users that there is a new version and they want it immediately (without waiting for the auto update) as most get confused by an error message they don't expect (I have had such feedback and wish I wouldn't have to explain how to replace a search plugin - it should just work for them.)

Comment 2

[Otto de Voogd [:ottodv]]

Sorry this is not a duplicate of bug 353056

This bug is an enhancement requested for a user to be able to replace *any* search engine in a user friendly way, by providing a yes/no choice to replace an existing search engine when installing a new version of the same search engine.

It is not about not being able to replace built in search engines as bug 353056 is. That's an entirely different problem.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

In the URL rectangle,I keep getting 'http://search.dsearchm3f2.com/?uc=.................' on starting a new tab. How do i get rid of this garbage and have my tabs open up with something shorter, e.g., Mozilla home-page or duckduckgo -- or a blank space?

[I don't know what the line below about needing more information refers to -- but i need help from anyone who can help me. Problems like this are turning me into a digital luddite.]

Comment 4

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment 3 points to a search/browser hijack situation and I've responded directly about how to remove it.

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Whilst I understand the desire for changes here, we don't really want to allow easy replacements for add-ons of the same name for a variety of reasons, one of those being to avoid confusion for the user and encourage extensions to use more descriptive names. Add-on testing has also been made easier with about:debugging and the facility to reload add-ons.

Overall I don't think we're likely to change this or introduce a yes/no choice.