Improved missing plugin experience

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Status

Improved missing plugin experience
Stage Planning
Status In progress
Release target `
Health OK
Status note `

{{#set:Feature name=Improved missing plugin experience

|Feature stage=Planning |Feature status=In progress |Feature version=` |Feature health=OK |Feature status note=` }}

Team

Product manager Chris Lee
Directly Responsible Individual Justin Dolske
Lead engineer `
Security lead `
Privacy lead `
Localization lead `
Accessibility lead `
QA lead Paul Silaghi
UX lead Alex Limi
Product marketing lead `
Operations lead `
Additional members `

{{#set:Feature product manager=Chris Lee

|Feature feature manager=Justin Dolske |Feature lead engineer=` |Feature security lead=` |Feature privacy lead=` |Feature localization lead=` |Feature accessibility lead=` |Feature qa lead=Paul Silaghi |Feature ux lead=Alex Limi |Feature product marketing lead=` |Feature operations lead=` |Feature additional members=` }}

Open issues/risks

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Stage 1: Definition

1. Feature overview

Our current experience when a plugin is missing is pretty abysmal, and rarely works for anything else than a very small set of plugins. We want to fix the experience for the small set of plugins that have a lot of users, and stop pretending to supply an auto-detect service for the others.


This feature falls primarily in the Experience category (from the "Discover, Experience, and Connect" vision statement.)

2. Users & use cases

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3. Dependencies

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4. Requirements

  • Ability to detect and point to relevant locations for the major plugins
    • PFS does this
  • Mozilla needs to host permanent redirect URLs for this, so we can change quickly, should downstream providers suddenly change their URLs or similar
    • PFS basically does this.
  • bug 268936 - It should be possible to say "Don't ask me to install this plugin again"
  • We should never imply that installing a plugin is absolutely necessary for the browser to function (like we kind of do today), but rather that plugins are required for certain types of content
  • bug 678707 - We should label which plugins you'll end up downloading/installing in the location where we show the "Missing Plugin" message. Right now, you don't know until you go ahead and start the process
  • bug 264254 (essentially WONTFIX) - We want to stop using Plugin Finder Service, and instead hardcode the small list of plugins we care about to simplify the code and maintenance burden
    • We are maintaining plugin data for plugincheck anyways

Non-goals

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Stage 2: Design

5. Functional specification

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6. User experience design

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Stage 3: Planning

7. Implementation plan

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8. Reviews

Security review

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Privacy review

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Localization review

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Accessibility

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Quality Assurance review

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Operations review

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Stage 4: Development

9. Implementation

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Stage 5: Release

10. Landing criteria

` {{#set:Feature open issues and risks=` |Feature overview=Our current experience when a plugin is missing is pretty abysmal, and rarely works for anything else than a very small set of plugins. We want to fix the experience for the small set of plugins that have a lot of users, and stop pretending to supply an auto-detect service for the others.


This feature falls primarily in the Experience category (from the "Discover, Experience, and Connect" vision statement.) |Feature users and use cases=` |Feature dependencies=` |Feature requirements=* Ability to detect and point to relevant locations for the major plugins

    • PFS does this
  • Mozilla needs to host permanent redirect URLs for this, so we can change quickly, should downstream providers suddenly change their URLs or similar
    • PFS basically does this.
  • bug 268936 - It should be possible to say "Don't ask me to install this plugin again"
  • We should never imply that installing a plugin is absolutely necessary for the browser to function (like we kind of do today), but rather that plugins are required for certain types of content
  • bug 678707 - We should label which plugins you'll end up downloading/installing in the location where we show the "Missing Plugin" message. Right now, you don't know until you go ahead and start the process
  • bug 264254 (essentially WONTFIX) - We want to stop using Plugin Finder Service, and instead hardcode the small list of plugins we care about to simplify the code and maintenance burden
    • We are maintaining plugin data for plugincheck anyways

|Feature non-goals=` |Feature functional spec=` |Feature ux design=` |Feature implementation plan=` |Feature security review=` |Feature privacy review=` |Feature localization review=` |Feature accessibility review=` |Feature qa review=` |Feature operations review=` |Feature implementation notes=` |Feature landing criteria=` }}

Feature details

Priority P2
Rank 2
Theme / Goal Experience
Roadmap User Experience
Secondary roadmap `
Feature list Desktop
Project `
Engineering team Desktop front-end

{{#set:Feature priority=P2

|Feature rank=2 |Feature theme=Experience |Feature roadmap=User Experience |Feature secondary roadmap=` |Feature list=Desktop |Feature project=` |Feature engineering team=Desktop front-end }}

Team status notes

  status notes
Products ` `
Engineering ` `
Security ` `
Privacy ` `
Localization ` `
Accessibility ` `
Quality assurance ` `
User experience ` `
Product marketing ` `
Operations ` `

{{#set:Feature products status=`

|Feature products notes=` |Feature engineering status=` |Feature engineering notes=` |Feature security status=` |Feature security health=` |Feature security notes=` |Feature privacy status=` |Feature privacy notes=` |Feature localization status=` |Feature localization notes=` |Feature accessibility status=` |Feature accessibility notes=` |Feature qa status=` |Feature qa notes=` |Feature ux status=` |Feature ux notes=` |Feature product marketing status=` |Feature product marketing notes=` |Feature operations status=` |Feature operations notes=` }}