83439 - Installer should default to HTTP downloads

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

Description

[Henrik Gemal]

Since there are fewer problems with HTTP downloads than FTP downloads the 
installer should default to HTTP download and not as current FTP download.

Fx my firewall doesn't allow FTP downloads.

Comment 1

[Henrik Gemal]

Created attachment 36633 [details] [diff] [review]
fix to make HTTP default.

Comment 2

[R.K.Aa.]

in my experience, http downloads unreliable and definately slower.
There is also bug 35956.

Comment 3

[Sean Su]

Just because it works best for one person does not mean it is the best as a 
default.  That's why it is an option.

I agree with R.K.  http is slower and not necessarily as reliable.  The main 
reason to use ftp as the default is because it handles large files better than 
http.

bug 35956 looks like it refers to necko.  The networking lib in the installer is 
a different code base and does not automatically gunzip .gz files.

Comment 4

[Henrik Gemal]

ok...:(

Comment 5

[Ivan Dolezal]

Hello,

you say in your comment that "[...]The main reason to use ftp as the default is
because it handles large files better than http."

Why? HTTP knows a sophisticated technique Partial Content (as seen on RFC 2616
and used by RealDownload, Go!Zilla etc.) and IMHO in combination with ETags it
should handle large files very well... or did I miss something?

Comment 6

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

The server guys insist that ftp puts much less strain on the servers than http,
which becomes an issue every milestone when thousands of people try to grab the
files at once.

Comment 7

[Henrik Gemal]

*** Bug 79326 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Henrik Gemal]

according to bonsai:
"updating installer to use http instead of ftp for downloading xpi files, does
not affect build, bugscape 16662, kysmith checking in as cltbld"

why? It's cool that it now defaults to HTTP, but why the suddent change?