chase's blog

Darin and Ben have been working hard on a revised software update user experience and, now, a decent chunk of that initial work has landed on the trunk. Darin has a great demo he's been showing of the client downloading updates in the background and applying them after a restart. Ben has a screenshot of the GUI for one scenario that could happen during update.

The plan right now is to bang out the larger issues currently facing the code, address build system work to create the complete update packages of nightly builds, focus on server work to create the update data the clients request (telling them whether or not an update exists), then turn our attention to creating a process for making partial updates based on previous builds. It's our intention to have an initial take on most of this work completed as a part of the Deer Park Alpha 2 milestone. Bettering software update is a "must ship" deliverable for Deer Park and the strides Ben, Darin, and company have made prove it.

I'm really glad to see some parts of the incremental update system landed and to know that it will be present in 1.1. Software Update really felt unfinished in 1.0, and I think that the somewhat clunky update system made it less likely that all users would update to the latest version.

Posted by: Rishi Maharaj at June 7, 2005 8:20 PM

Being someone who is stuck forever on Dialup (sodding transmission loss), this means a HUGE amount to me. I know keeping software up to date is important, but having to download full installers over and over again is just a pain in the arse.

Now, if only en-GB releases came out at the same time: I live in Australia, but en-GB is the closest I can get... :(

Posted by: Daniel at June 7, 2005 10:27 PM

I don't know how localisations work exactly, but aren't they basically like extensions? Hopefully the update patches will not be localisation-specific.

I agree incremental update should be a great and much-needed feature.

By the way, if you're on dialup, frankly it doesn't much matter whether you update Firefox - you won't experience serious risk from any of the security holes unless you visit dangerous sites (pr0n, warez, etc). All the security holes rely on your visiting a malicious web server, so if you tend only to visit known, reputable sites, you're not at significant risk. As far as I'm aware there were rather few in-the-wild uses of these holes, even on less reputable sites... one advantage that still remains from being a 'minority' browser. I'm not sure how long that will last...

Posted by: sam at June 8, 2005 2:40 AM

Will this also work on Linux?

Posted by: Daniel Schierbeck at June 8, 2005 5:04 AM

"All the security holes rely on your visiting a malicious web server, so if you tend only to visit known, reputable sites, you're not at significant risk."

So, never use Google or any other search engine! Check each link before clicking -even on trusted sites-, if it won't go to an unknown -and untrusted- site! Hope, that noone ever hacks one of your trusted sites and places malicious content (like on MSN Korea)! Live in fear ;)

I really appreciate that a better patching mechanism is being implemented. Now, could we integrate that into Windows Update? Anyone wants to ask Microsoft? :)

Posted by: Tobias at June 8, 2005 5:47 AM