[tor-bugs] #7842 [Tor bundles/installation]: make a graphical TBB installer (extractor)

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#7842: make a graphical TBB installer (extractor)
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 Reporter:  proper                    |          Owner:  mo      
     Type:  enhancement               |         Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                    |      Milestone:          
Component:  Tor bundles/installation  |        Version:          
 Keywords:  tbb-usability             |         Parent:          
   Points:                            |   Actualpoints:          
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Comment(by mikeperry):

 Replying to [comment:7 phobos]:
 > Replying to [comment:6 mo]:
 >
 > > will take a "./Tor Browser" directory and produce torbrowser-
 install.exe from it. In will prompt to run Tor Browser after installation
 (and will still confuse users who are not able to find Tor Browser again
 later), and warn if you are trying to overwrite existing Tor Browser
 installations.

 I don't think we need to warn about overwriting an existing Tor Browser.
 That should work in the future. It simply didn't work this time because of
 the major changes from FF10->FF17. We may end up with similar issues
 during the switch from FF17-FF24, but normally it should be fine to
 upgrade in this way, and this is how we intend to make the updater work.

 > We do not want an installer for TBB. TBB was created to get away from
 the horrible installers we had in the past. We had no end of issues with
 installers (which led to the creation of TBB). We should not spend time on
 installers.

 Well, it depends on what we mean by "Installer". I agree that anything
 complicated that touches Windows in any other way than writing to the TBB
 directory is bad. My understanding is that minimal NSIS installer scripts
 can be made such that this doesn't happen. If that's not the case, then
 yes, we need to reconsider the option.

 > > Currently, the default location for TBB "installation" is the user
 desktop. I am not sure this is the best default, but I think it is an
 improvement over the installer directory (which is the 7zip default).
 >
 > The default location is whatever directory in which the zip/exe files
 resides. What we want is a simple exe/zip/dmg that runs TBB, does
 everything behind the scenes, and just works. Users shouldn't be exposed
 to installers, un-extractors, etc. It should just simply be a download and
 run. This will encourage more users to run from torproject.org, but they
 already do this. The answer is to fix TBB, not write installers and dig
 more into a system.

 This simply does not work with most browsers. They click to run the exe
 and the TBB bundle dir ends up in their Downloads or Documents folders and
 they can't find it.

 We desperately need *something* that guides a user through the conversion
 of the TBB download exe to the TBB app directory. If 12.5% of computer
 literate college students get lost and give up on TBB at this step (see
 http://petsymposium.org/2012/papers/hotpets12-1-usability.pdf, pages 6 and
 7), imagine what happens to older people. Having seen it, I'll tell you:
 It's not pretty.

 Having a simple GUI that does nothing other than help point the user to
 the location where TBB ends up is a huge win.

 > > I would like to replace the generic Welcome page ("This wizard will
 guide you through the installation...") with some information about the
 portability of TBB (no shortcuts, simply delete of directory to uninstall,
 can install to USB device), but that again will add more language-
 dependent strings.
 >
 > We have this already, written up in a new check.tpo release by aagbsn.
 It's waiting on merging into the current check codebase before we can roll
 it out. I can't find the ticket for it, but there's at least two open
 tickets about it.

 This assumes they can find the TBB directory to run it though. If the NSIS
 thing just launched TBB, that might work.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/7842#comment:8>
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