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This page describes the technical plan to move the process of applying the updates in Firefox to the background as opposed to at startup. In order to get a clear idea about the scope of the project, please see the Goals and Non-Goals sections below.
= Goals = # Moving the update process to the background# Initiating the update process as soon as an update is downloaded# Being able to apply a newer update if Firefox was not restarted since the previous update was applied in the background# Try to do as little as possible at startup
# Eliminate the progress bar UI that the current updater shows
= Non-Goals = # Handling UAC prompts on Windows# Changing the frequency of checking for updates, our handling of major/minor updates, or the way we check for add-ons compatibility# Eliminating the UI we display in Step 2# Changing how updates work on Android
# Any of the other projects falling under the "silent update" umbrella
= Implementation =
Here is a proposal for how background updates will be implemented.
* The process will start by Firefox checking for an update in the background (as it does today).
* Once an update is found
** If the user needs to prompted for some reason, we show that prompt. If the user declines, we bail out.
** Otherwise, we go ahead and download the update (as a complete/partial MAR file) in the background.
* Once the download is finished, Firefox launches the updater binary in the background with the UI display disabled.
** The target of the update will be known <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> from now on.
*** On Windows, if Firefox is installed to "C:\path\to\Mozilla Firefox", <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> will be "C:\path\to\Mozilla Firefox.new".
*** On Mac, if Firefox is installed to "/path/to/Firefox.app", <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> will be "/path/to/Firefox.app/Updated.app". In other words, the updated version of Firefox will be installed as a bundle inside the existing Firefox bundle.
*** On Linux, if Firefox is installed to a flat directory like "/path/to/firefox", <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> will be "/path/to/firefox.new". If it's installed in a non-flat directory structure (like /usr/bin for example), the details of where <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> will be is TBD.
** The manifest file will be known as a file named "update.pending" located in the root of the existing Firefox installation.
* The updater binary checks to see if there is an existing manifest file.
** If this file exists, it will be removed.
* The updater binary checks to see if there is an existing <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> directory.
** If this directory exists, it will be removed.
* The updater binary will go ahead and apply the update to the <code>FIREFOX_NEW</code> directory using the existing installation directory as the base.
* The updater binary will write a new manifest file to the existing installation's directory.
