Releasing 4.0.1 w/o update notification
Hey everyone, I think it is probably most wise to release 4.0.1 without an in-browser update or update notification, or at best, only an update for Windows users. If we do want to update only the Windows users, what's the best way to do that? Is it even a good idea, given that we're aware that it may actually break things for some of them due to https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13594? Right now, I am thinking the circumstances mean "no update" for this reason, but if anyone disagrees, feel free to say so. -- Mike Perry
On 10/31/14 11:48 PM, Mike Perry wrote:
Hey everyone,
I think it is probably most wise to release 4.0.1 without an in-browser update or update notification, or at best, only an update for Windows users.
If we do want to update only the Windows users, what's the best way to do that? Is it even a good idea, given that we're aware that it may actually break things for some of them due to https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13594?
Right now, I am thinking the circumstances mean "no update" for this reason, but if anyone disagrees, feel free to say so.
Unfortunately 13594 is a bit of an unknown as far as how many Windows users are affected. Kathy and I tried to come up with a fix over the past couple of days, but we ran out of time. The only thing that is confusing about not advertising an update is that people may wonder why they are not able to update to the latest version (4.0.1) from within the browser. But we have dealt with that problem in the past with Tor Browser non-security critical updates. To avoid advertising an update, I think we will need to tweak the .htaccess file that boklm's script generates. -- Mark Smith Pearl Crescent http://pearlcrescent.com/
Mark Smith:
The only thing that is confusing about not advertising an update is that people may wonder why they are not able to update to the latest version (4.0.1) from within the browser. But we have dealt with that problem in the past with Tor Browser non-security critical updates.
There is a difference here: In the past there was no updater in Tor Browser and the users did not expect to have it working. This changed with 4.0 and users start asking why they can't update to 4.0.1 as there is now an updater available but which tells them that their browser is up-to-date which is clearly false (there is a new version that is even fixing non-emergency issues). This is indeed confusing. I think we should at least avoid that in the future and allow always updating from within the browser if we ship an update for the respective platform. This means it is totally fine to ship, say, a hotfix update just for Windows and let therefore only update Windows users to the new version and claim for all other platforms the browser is still up-to-date.
To avoid advertising an update, I think we will need to tweak the .htaccess file that boklm's script generates.
Do we? I thought just doing nothing is enough. Georg
On Sat, 01 Nov 2014, Georg Koppen wrote:
To avoid advertising an update, I think we will need to tweak the .htaccess file that boklm's script generates.
Do we? I thought just doing nothing is enough.
If we do nothing, I think it will want to downgrade 4.0.1 users to 4.0. I can add an option in the script's config file to tell that a version is still good and doesn't need to be updated to the last version.
On Sun, 02 Nov 2014, Nicolas Vigier wrote:
On Sat, 01 Nov 2014, Georg Koppen wrote:
To avoid advertising an update, I think we will need to tweak the .htaccess file that boklm's script generates.
Do we? I thought just doing nothing is enough.
If we do nothing, I think it will want to downgrade 4.0.1 users to 4.0.
I can add an option in the script's config file to tell that a version is still good and doesn't need to be updated to the last version.
Before doing that, as a temporary fix I tweaked the .htaccess so that 4.0.1 users don't get an update notification.
On 11/1/14 9:25 PM, Nicolas Vigier wrote:
Before doing that, as a temporary fix I tweaked the .htaccess so that 4.0.1 users don't get an update notification.
That seems fine but I am pretty sure that the updater code inside the browser will ignore downgrades. See: https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor-browser.git/blob/refs/heads/tor-browser-31... -- Mark Smith Pearl Crescent http://pearlcrescent.com/
On 11/1/14 4:49 PM, Georg Koppen wrote:
To avoid advertising an update, I think we will need to tweak the .htaccess file that boklm's script generates.
Do we? I thought just doing nothing is enough.
You are right of course if we do not want to advertise an update for any platform. I was thinking we would generate the new .htaccess and XML files for 4.0.1 (and then tweak), but maybe there is no need to do so. -- Mark Smith Pearl Crescent http://pearlcrescent.com/
participants (4)
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Georg Koppen -
Mark Smith -
Mike Perry -
Nicolas Vigier