575366 - Get downgrade/upgrade metrics by having Firefox ping mozilla

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

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

While thinking about bug 575309 I realized that Firefox itself could ping mozilla when a downgrade occurs for all platforms. Firefox already keeps track of the last version in a preference and all Firefox would also need to keep track of is the installation directory path. When Firefox detects a version change (which it already does) it would check if it is a downgrade and if the path is the same as the last path at which point it would ping mozilla. This method would also avoid the Firewall request for the installer as stated in bug 575309 comment #1

Comment 1

[LegNeato]

Wouldn't it be trivial to expand this to get down AND upgrade metrics? We can send a before version and an after version.

* If before version is null, it is a fresh install
   -> Gets us new user / machine / conversion metrics

* If before version is < after version
   -> Gets us upgrade path metrics

* If before version is > after version
   -> Gets us downgrade metrics

* If before version is == after version
   -> Gets us metrics on people who likely think their install is busted

These metrics have come up a bunch in the last couple months. It would be useful to have these in FF4 so we can see if people are downgrading point releases. Also, later when we go to EOL it we will have some good data. Ideally we'd backport it to branches so when we release FF4 we see how many people are downgrading as well, but it's not required.

We'd have to make sure that it does something intelligent when people are running the same profile with 2 versions as we don't want data ping-pong.