600383 - Add an option with UI to make checking and donwloading of updates/upgrades independant

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; fr; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10
Build Identifier: 

Once I've been in Russia. There you pay internet depending on the bandwith you
use (an amount of data). It's not just like in US or in Europe where you pay
for an amount of time.
Every one there disable images, ..., everything they can. Updating/Upgrading
has a cost there. Checking for updates too (even if it is a smaller). So no-one
has up-to-day software and no-one wished to update/upgrade.
So, not implementing the auto-download of updates/upgrades when avaible is
important for firefox market penetration and development.
I know about Russia, but I think that some similar cases could happen in
developing countries.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Ilhan Yumer]

Valid for Turkey too.

Comment 2

[Alexander L. Slovesnik]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Once I've been in Russia. There you pay internet depending on the bandwith you
> use (an amount of data). It's not just like in US or in Europe where you pay
> for an amount of time.
> Every one there disable images, ..., everything they can. Updating/Upgrading
> has a cost there. Checking for updates too (even if it is a smaller). So no-one
> has up-to-day software and no-one wished to update/upgrade.
> So, not implementing the auto-download of updates/upgrades when avaible is
> important for firefox market penetration and development.
> I know about Russia, but I think that some similar cases could happen in
> developing countries.

I think you've been in Russia long time ago. Flat-rate tariff plans are ubiquitous in Russia nowadays.

Comment 3

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

It's still the case in Irkutsk as far as I know ;-)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=fr&geocode=&q=Irkutsk&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.150864,56.513672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Irkoutsk,+Russie&z=10

And I still think that it is the case in developing countries.

Comment 4

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

From https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=596813#c61

> > Once I've been in Russia. There you pay internet depending on the bandwith you
> > use (an amount of data). It's not just like in US or in Europe where you pay
> > for an amount of time.
> > Every one there disable images, ..., everything they can. Updating/Upgrading
> > has a cost there. Checking for updates too (even if it is a smaller). So no-one
> > has up-to-day software and no-one wished to update/upgrade.
> > So, not implementing the auto-download of updates/upgrades when avaible is
> > important for firefox market penetration and development.
> > I know about Russia, but I think that some similar cases could happen in
> > developing countries.
> The only difference here is that if you have auto update set in options /
> preferences then it checks and downloads when an update is available when
> opening the about window instead of just in the background as it did before.
> Disabling auto update will not check and download if an update is found when
> opening the about window or in the background where the background check
> download has always been the behavior when auto update is set.
> 
> The reason this is the default is so we can get security fixes out quickly.

Everyone agree that we need to get security fixes out quickly. But right now as
Cheking and downloading are not independant, what is happening in Russia is
that people disable cheking and donwloading and stay like that for years...
with Fx 1.0 ;-)

I'm happy with  the 'check and download' when I'm in US/Europe, but I feel like
I want to keep check  but disable download when I'm in RU so I can decide what
to do instead of just skipping all notifications about updates and upgrades.
I understand that this is inconfortable for maintaining Firefox secure, but I
think it's a cost-less price in countries where you pay the internet acces by
data amount.

Maybe just keep the actual behavior, but disociate the check and the download
option in options/preferences dialog.

Let's speak about that in the related bug 600383, no ?

Comment 5

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

changed title from 'Do not make download of updates/upgrades automatic when avaible' to 'Add an option with UI to make checking and donwloading of updates/upgrades independant'

Comment 6

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

(In reply to comment #62)
> > Everyone agree that we need to get security fixes out quickly. But right now as
> > Cheking and downloading are not independant, what is happening in Russia is
> > that people disable cheking and donwloading and stay like that for years...
> > with Fx 1.0 ;-)
Aka without beeing prompt about upgrades (because it's a all in one 'check and download' pref), that is the worse issue (even if being notified about updates is important too)
> Are these people really opening the about window or manually checking for
> updates all that often? see below

They won't, right. That's why I think that a more global thing should be done. Something that allow to 'Do not make download of updates/upgrades automatic when
avaible'. I think it could be 'Add an option with UI to make checking and donwloading of updates/upgrades independant' as this keeps the actual behaviour that is important for security fixies (then, the user can disable the '*download* in background' aka '*download* without notification' or '*download* as soon as an apdate/upgrade is avaible' option)

> > I'm happy with  the 'check and download' when I'm in US/Europe, but I feel like
> > I want to keep check  but disable download when I'm in RU so I can decide what
> > to do instead of just skipping all notifications about updates and upgrades.
> > I understand that this is inconfortable for maintaining Firefox secure, but I
> > think it's a cost-less price in countries where you pay the internet acces by
> > data amount.
> Or just set the preference to notify and let the background check notify you
> that there is an update available.
If that don't means that a download is made without an user action.
This is not for manual check only, but it's part of auto and manual check.
My specific experience with download in background of updates (security fixies) is that people that pay on data decide to disable the check for update only to prevent the donwload action.
I'ld like that for people that pay on time to keep the default (actual) behaviour, but allow thoses that pay on data to just be notified (so at least we get the chance to convince them to update ; Today, they just disable the all in one 'check and download avaible updates' and they don't get notifications for upgrades).
That's why I'm in favor to set a notify only pref (completed by a download only pref).

I hope to be clear because sometimes I've hard time to speak EN :-(
> My anecdotal experience of users show that
> the vast majority of people don't manually check and instead wait to be
> notified or have the update downloaded in the background (which has always been
> how it works) and I highly doubt that is any different in Russia though it is
> different with the subset of tech people that use nightly builds.

If I'm not too tired (that is not sure), what I describe is not for manual check only, but it's part of auto and manual check.

> > Let's speak about that in the related bug 600383, no ?
> Sure but that is different than the points you made above.
Be pleased to tweak the title to make it better if needed ;-)

Comment 7

[Luke Iliffe (Harlequin99)]

This pref to allow update checks independent from download is already in the UI, and has been there for years. 

In the Options dialog | Advanced | Updates set Firefox to update automatically (default) but in the 2nd option "When updates to Firefox are found:" select "Ask me what I want to do"

With this 2nd option users will receive a prompt when an update is available but will be asked if they want to download it or not.

Resolving INVALID as the requested pref and UI as described in the title already exist.

Comment 8

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

I tested it on Ubuntu distribution nightly and not a Mozilla nightly : in that case you don't have all the "When updates to _app-name_ are found :" ;-)

Comment 9

[Scott Field]

(In reply to comment #7)
> This pref to allow update checks independent from download is already in the
> UI, and has been there for years. 
> 
> In the Options dialog | Advanced | Updates set Firefox to update automatically
> (default) but in the 2nd option "When updates to Firefox are found:" select
> "Ask me what I want to do"
> 
> With this 2nd option users will receive a prompt when an update is available
> but will be asked if they want to download it or not.
> 
> Resolving INVALID as the requested pref and UI as described in the title
> already exist.

While the options exist in the user preferences, they are now being ignored if you manually choose "check for updates" in the "About Minefield" window. If an update is found, it automatically gets downloaded.  (At least in Mac Os X)

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b7pre) Gecko/20101004 Firefox/4.0b7pre ID:20101004030754

Comment 10

[Jesse Ruderman]

> While the options exist in the user preferences, they are now being ignored if
> you manually choose "check for updates" in the "About Minefield" window.

This is covered by bug 600500.