631824 - Fennec Update Check (if not installed through Android Market)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Thomas Arend [:tarend]]

If not installed through the Android Market, Fennec should check daily for available updates, similar to our nightly releases.

Background: distribution channels like Amazon, GetJar, AppsLib, Handster, etc. would like to distribute Fennec. However, Android Market doesn't include apps installed through 3rd parties in their upgrade check. 

Example: User installs Beta 4 from our FTP server or some other online source. Android Market doesn't recognize that the app is installed -> no notification when Beta 5 comes out. User can manually "install" Beta 5 from the Android Market, which will overwrite the Beta 4 package and only then register the app with the Market for future updates.

Comment 1

[Aakash Desai [:aakashd]]

It'd be really great to offer an easier way for users on other distribution channels (who may be their primary channels) to get Firefox. Cc'ing Brad and Stuart.

Comment 2

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

IMO, a change like this would need beta coverage.

Comment 3

[Thomas Arend [:tarend]]

Another popular distribution channel contacted us today: http://www.androidpit.de
There will be many more as we get to our official release.

Comment 4

[Thomas Arend [:tarend]]

Any update on this? Having an update check built-in like in our nightly releases would probably allow us to distribute Fennec via 3rd party channels.

Comment 5

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Any update on this? Having an update check built-in like in our nightly
> releases would probably allow us to distribute Fennec via 3rd party channels.

Zero work has been done on this bug. The bug has no flags set to allow it to be found in "this should be fixed" searches. Since you are asking about it, I'll add the tracking-fennec flag.

What is the priority of this bug? Also, if we add this support to all betas and releases, then the Android Market versions would have this support as well. Making separate builds would be a way around it, but at a high cost of maintenance.

Comment 6

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

I would think that a reliable update mechanism would be a prerequisite for us using a 3rd party channel. I'm tempted to mark this won't fix until there is a compelling case for using an update channel that doesn't have such an update mechanism.

Comment 7

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

I agree.  It seems unlikely there will be any widely-used distribution channel for Android that installs apps but does not update them (forcing each app to include its own updater).

Comment 8

[Thomas Arend [:tarend]]

True. But what if the user installs Fennec but then decides to uninstall the Amazon or GetJar updater? Fennec will not get updates through the AM in that case - same as installing Fennec via FTP today. To resolve this, users have to go into AM and update to a new Fennec release manually.

Comment 9

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> True. But what if the user installs Fennec but then decides to uninstall the
> Amazon or GetJar updater? Fennec will not get updates through the AM in that
> case - same as installing Fennec via FTP today. To resolve this, users have
> to go into AM and update to a new Fennec release manually.

I think that's something Amazon and GetJar need to address.

Comment 11

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

sounds like this could help mozilla china.

Comment 12

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

We need to get UX and maybe others involved to figure out how and when to allow Mozilla Update to work. Should we allow it for the Android Market, where updating is built-in? Should we allow this from "any old webpage" or only from App Markets, like Amazon and GetJar?

We could use the app channel to identify where the app is coming from. We did that for Nokia's Ovi Store.

Comment 13

[chris hofmann]

(In reply to Doug Turner (:dougt) from comment #11)
> sounds like this could help mozilla china.

Its probably going to help every locale/country outside the US.  Internationalization/Localization on the andriod store seems pretty lacking.

We should also be working toward building out the mobile equivalent of 
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html for our own distribution of mobile to firefox users outside of the US.

Did the the slides this week really say that only half of mobile users installed fennec from the andriod store?

Comment 14

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

This bug is for having the build some how detect that it is not installed through the android market and use our update mechanism instead. That is WONTFIX (not even sure if it is possible). If we want to produce a seperate build for mozilla china that has the updater enabled, please file that bug, but that is a different issue

Comment 15

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

I assume any newly filed bug would be very similar to this one...

Comment 16

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Filed bug 690820 to handle a separate build for non-Google stores that don't have an update mechanism.