[tor-dev] Tor Browser downloads and updates graphs

[David Fifield]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 11:12:15AM -0400, Mark Smith wrote:
> On 9/11/16 3:45 PM, David Fifield wrote:
> >> * We don't know what (8) or (9) is but it seems to us we are losing
> >> users over time and are only getting them back slowly if at all. A
> >> weekday/weekend pattern is visible there as well.
> > 
> > Does Tor Browser continue checking for further updates in the span of
> > time between when it downloads an update and when it is restarted? For
> > example, you are running 6.0, the browser downloads the 6.0.1 update and
> > stages it and asks you to restart; does the browser check for updates
> > until you actually restart? If not, then the decreases in update pings
> > might be people being tardy in restarting their browser.
> 
> That is a good theory, but I don't think update checks occur if there is
> a pending update. The code that checks and returns early is here:
> 
> https://gitweb.torproject.org/tor-browser.git/tree/toolkit/mozapps/update/nsUpdateService.js?h=tor-browser-45.4.0esr-6.0-1#n2388

Oh, thanks for finding that source code link. I looked for that code and
didn't find it.

But that's exactly what I'm saying: once someone has downloaded an
update, they stop sending update pings until their next restart, which
might explain the decreases in update pings at (8) and (9) in the graphs.