633285 - Show Flash information on plugincheck when there's no referrer

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

We are planning to do some widespread blocking of older Flash versions in bug 589670. We have a number of ways for a user to end up at the plugincheck page after Flash is blocked.

The problem is that because Flash is blocked, plugincheck doesn't know that it's installed and therefore doesn't say it's outdated.

We'd like to display some information about Flash in cases where:
1. there is no referrer to the page (this probably means they clicked on a blocklist infobar to get there)

2. there is a parameter, something like ?flash=1

I'd recommend we display this at the top of the normal grid but with a status of "Unknown".

This bug blocks a Firefox 4 hardblocker and we hope to blocklist Flash next week.

Comment 1

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

You probably want ozten cc'd on this, since he's played with the plugincheck page more than me

Comment 2

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Attachment: Quick mockup of Flash as an unknown plugin

Also, can you elaborate on what you mean by "display some information about Flash" - anything like the image I attached?

Not sure how the blank referer would help though - do you mean whenever I hit plugincheck from the awesomebar, I'd always see "Flash / Unknown" up at the top if I had it disabled / uninstalled?

Comment 3

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

lorchard: we need to establish a baseline version of Flash for 4.0, and need a way to let people know they need to know they have to update flash. when you have a blocklisted DLL (e.g. for flash) and visit a page that requires the plugin, it refers you to the blocklist page and/or the plugincheck. because the dll is disabled, it doesn't show up in the plugincheck list as "you gotta upgrade!" list. we want to be able to flag those users, and refer them to adobe to get the latest and greatest version.

per point 2, when the infobar in 4.0 is displayed when you have the needed plugin disabled, it sends you over to the plugincheck without a referrer. we were thinking we could use that to filter barring any better way.

Comment 4

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

When Flash is blocked in Firefox 4 there is an infobar that goes to plugincheck: http://people.mozilla.com/~fligtar/blocklist/flash/fx4-youtube.png

People that go to plugincheck from there won't have a referrer and will be looking to update Flash.

I was thinking of being a little more forceful about updating than "Research" even though there's a very very slight chance they don't have Flash installed: http://grab.by/8T0U

Comment 5

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

I guess my point is, aren't most visits to the plugincheck page without a referer? Not sure how people get to it these days - but it was in the addon manager in Fx3.6, and that was a blank referrer

Comment 6

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Probably true, we were hoping for a rabbit out of the hat.

What we really want to do is impress upon people is that their Firefox Experience will be best experienced with 10.1.102 and higher, and we want to highlight that for folks who visit from wherever they come from if they are not already at that level. Any thoughts on a best practice approach for that? We can display for everyone, but we'd like to filter where we can.

Comment 7

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Probably true, we were hoping for a rabbit out of the hat.

I don't think a blank referrer is the rabbit or the hat. Could maybe trigger a canned upgrade message from a parameter, but not sure how that infobar works.

I've never actually seen a blocklisted plugin before... where does the "details" button go in the infobar? Seems like maybe that should have details on upgrading the plugin?

Comment 8

[Austin King [:ozten]]

(In reply to comment #0)

For uses cases needed to fix Bug#589670, can we always append a query string parameter to the plugin check url?

Comment 9

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I guess my point is, aren't most visits to the plugincheck page without a
> referer? Not sure how people get to it these days - but it was in the addon
> manager in Fx3.6, and that was a blank referrer

Where was it in the Add-ons Manager? I don't know of any popular ways to get to it that don't have a referrer besides this, but maybe it's integrated in a way I don't know about.

(In reply to comment #7)
> I've never actually seen a blocklisted plugin before... where does the
> "details" button go in the infobar? Seems like maybe that should have details
> on upgrading the plugin?

It goes to mozilla.com/blocklist which will have a message about it and encourage people to update there as well.

(In reply to comment #8)
> For uses cases needed to fix Bug#589670, can we always append a query string
> parameter to the plugin check url?

We'd like to fix that in Firefox 4 and beltzner said he'd file a bug to do that, but it won't help us now.

Comment 10

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Where was it in the Add-ons Manager? I don't know of any popular ways to get to
> it that don't have a referrer besides this, but maybe it's integrated in a way
> I don't know about.

In Fx3.6: Tools menu > Add-ons item > Plugins tab > Find Updates button at the bottom of the window.

Comment 11

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Requirements:

In php - detect if there is no referrer and make available in webpage.

Output the Flash Blocklist callout from Bug#633311.

In JavaScript - outside of the Perfidies plugin detection codebase... Detect if the user has Flash. (You can reuse perfidies by calling PluginDetect.getVersion('Flash')

If there is no referrer AND there is no Flash detected, show callout. Otherwise, hide the callout.

Do the right thing for noscript, etc.

Comment 12

[Austin King [:ozten]]

I went ahead and coded up what has been discussed so far, still waiting on the final design.

Done in r83175.

Comment 13

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Implemented the design from Bug#633311.

Comment 14

[raymond [:retornam] (inactive)]

Attachment: screenshot

users with  updated flash versions still see the upgrade message.
See attached screenshot

Comment 15

[Austin King [:ozten]]

(In reply to comment #14)

Good call, not showing message if flash is detectable.

Comment 16

[Justin Scott [:fligtar]]

Could we tweak the copy a bit too?

For your safety, Firefox has disabled your outdated version of Flash. Please upgrade to the latest version.

Comment 17

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Copy tweaks made in r84308.

Comment 18

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Changes are staged in r84309.

Comment 19

[raymond [:retornam] (inactive)]

Attachment: iescreenshot

layout broken in IE6

Comment 20

[Austin King [:ozten]]

(In reply to comment #19)

Please file a new bug and whiteboard [good first bug].

This is visual only. We don't support IE 6. This shouldn't block this fix and we're short on dev time.

Comment 21

[raymond [:retornam] (inactive)]

(In reply to comment #20)
> (In reply to comment #19)
> 
> Please file a new bug and whiteboard [good first bug].
> 
> This is visual only. We don't support IE 6. This shouldn't block this fix and
> we're short on dev time.

qa-verified-trunk http://www-trunk.stage.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/

Comment 22

[James Long (:jlongster)]

pushed to production r84526

Comment 23

[[:philipp]]

when doing the plugincheck on a localized (not en-US) site without flash plugin present on the system, the site will warn you "For your safety, Firefox has disabled your outdated version of Flash. Please upgrade to the latest version." which is confusing since there were no flash versions blocklisted by mozilla as of yet.
so it would probably be better if this information is only shown, once such blocks are enacted...