563135 - Add plugin check support via blocklist

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[eviatarbach]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100430 Minefield/3.7a5pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100430 Minefield/3.7a5pre

With the new in-tab add-on manager, there is no longer a link to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/, as there was in the windowed one, which could be accessed by pressing "Find Updates" while on the Plug-Ins section. Doing this on the current one simply checks updates for the extensions.

As plug-in updates are essential for security, some sort of implementation should be built into the add-ons manager. I think the best way would be to include this: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/, within the manager itself.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

While plugin check is extremely useful for add-on update checks, it is not being included in this iteration of the add-ons manager.  The reason is that add-ons are being updated by default in this design, so it would only be very temporarily that a user would see that an add-on is not up to date.  

Making add-on updates automatic is one of the main thrusts of the new design, but plug-in check is essentially a tool for manually keeping add-ons up to date.  So, by presenting it to user in this UI, we would both be alerting users that some add-ons need to be updated, but also burying the UI to manually update them (see bug 553502).  The users who would find plug-in check useful in the new UI are those who have decided to change their preferences in order to manually update add-ons, but these users are much more likely to be aware of add-on check in the first place.  I could see in a future iteration including something similar to add-on check for only the manual update case, but since we are focusing on the default case for now and plug-in check exists outside of the manager, it isn't necessary to include in this relese.

Comment 2

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

Reopening - Mossop says we can't do automatic updates for plug-ins currently, which means plug-in check is necessary.  I'll attach a mock.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Reopening - Mossop says we can't do automatic updates for plug-ins currently,
> which means plug-in check is necessary.  I'll attach a mock.

Jennifer, I'm sure you wanted to attach the following mockup:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/thumb/9/9c/Plugin_manual_update_in_addonsmanager2342.png/800px-Plugin_manual_update_in_addonsmanager2342.png

Comment 4

[eviatarbach]

Looks good! The buttons could do with some recolouring though. Maybe smaller too.

Comment 7

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Needed by string freeze

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Attachment: outdated warning patch rev 1

This simple patch adds warnings to known outdated plugins directing them to plugin-check. I'm not sure it completely fills this goal but I'm not sure exactly what else we can do easily for Firefox 4.

This is on top of the details view patch since it adds it to there too.

Comment 9

[Blair McBride [:Unfocused] (UNAVAILABLE)]

Comment on attachment 469191 [details] [diff] [review]
outdated warning patch rev 1

Kinda feel like we should be doing more here, but I have no idea what. But this gets us the important bit in. Anything else can be followup fodder.

Comment 10

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Ready for checkin?

Comment 11

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Ready for checkin?

No, this patch depends on others that look like they may slip past b5

Comment 12

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Landed: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/7739cff04a0b

Comment 13

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

So what's the expected behavior for current builds? I have installed an old version of the Flash plugin but I don't get notified about an update.

Comment 14

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to comment #13)
> So what's the expected behavior for current builds? I have installed an old
> version of the Flash plugin but I don't get notified about an update.

See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597124#c6 and below, however we have never added information about outdated plugins to the blocklist so you would have to create a custom blocklist to see it.

Comment 15

[Scoobidiver (away)]

Build : Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b7pre) Gecko/20101005 Firefox/4.0b7pre
I don't have anything in AOM that look like the mockup, especially the AOM pane, even if "Update Add-ons automatically" is ticked.
For instance:
* with an up-to-date plugin, I don't have this "up to date" display.
* when I had Flash 10.1.82.76 installed, plugin check said it was vulnerable, but I didn't have the "Update now" button in the AOM pane.

Is there something wrong with plugin management on 64-bit Windows ?
I think so, see bug 600796 for Flash plugin and bug 584012 for QuickTime on 64-bit Windows.

Comment 16

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to comment #14)
> See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597124#c6 and below, however
> we have never added information about outdated plugins to the blocklist so you
> would have to create a custom blocklist to see it.

Which options I would have to add to such a blocklist entry? I can't find any information on the Wiki and MDN, to mark a plug-in as outdated.

Comment 17

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

The docs here https://wiki.mozilla.org/Extension_Blocklisting:Code_Design, you can mark a plugin as outdated with severity=0 for plugins.

Comment 18

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Tested with the following entry in the blocklist.xml file:

<pluginItem>
  <match name="name" exp="Shockwave Flash"/>
  <versionRange severity="0">
    <targetApplication id="{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}">
      <versionRange minVersion="3.5.*" maxVersion="4.0.*"/>
    </targetApplication>
  </versionRange>
</pluginItem>

Marking as verified fixed with Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b12pre) Gecko/20110209 Firefox/4.0b12pre ID:20110209030359

Dave or Justin, can you remember if there was ever a discussion about adding outdated plugins to the blocklist? Probably sounds like a good idea as long as we do not have built-in support (bug 613305) for plugin-check in Firefox 4.0.