Releases/3.6.20/Google toolbar options

Meeting Details

• Thursday July 21st, 4:00pm Pacific
• 650-903-0800 x92 Conf# 8605 (US/INTL)
• 1-800-707-2533 (pin 369) Conf# 8605 (US)
• join irc.mozilla.org #planning for back channel
• Warp Core conf room in MV

Background

• Google announced the Google Toolbar for Firefox is EOL
  • The EOL doesn't seem to have been messaged too widely, looks to have only been announced on the Google Toolbar support blog
  • There are still places where Google is offering the toolbar for download
• The current toolbar doesn't support Firefox 5+
  • The current toolbar isn't hosted on AMO so it isn't getting automatically bumped
• Google Toolbar incompatibility is a top support issue
  • One major issue is that people saved bookmarks with the toolbar. They should be available on www.google.com/bookmarks, but people may not be aware of this?!
• We know that a large amount of users are not taking update offers to 5+ due to Google Toolbar incompatibility
• Many users likely expect a new version of Google toolbar to be released and marked compatible

Firefox 3.6.20 (code freeze is 2011-08-01) would be the earliest vehicle we can use to change the product and will allow us to push product changes before users get update offers to 5+.

This meeting is to discuss possible in-product options for messaging that Google Toolbar is EOL and/or removing it from the critical update path.

Notes

• See two problems:
  • Need to support getting data out of the toolbar
  • Need to tell them the toolbar is unsupported and future Firefox support is not coming

• We have options:

1. Get Google to issue one last update that uninstalls the toolbar, migrates data, and messages that they have stopped support
   • What about 3.6 people? They are using a supported browser with a supported toolbar
     • Seems strange / wrong to take it away from them
   • What about functionality that can't be migrated without installing add-ons?
     • We'd focus on bookmarks and message the rest
   • What if Google doesn't want to do it?
     • We could also develop it ourselves and give it to Google
2. Change Firefox 3.6.20 so that it ignores incompatibility of Google Toolbar on update
   • This would help the update rejection concern
     • Not for Firefox 4 though, as we don't intend to do a 4.0.2 (and can't even as we are shutting down automation for it)
   • The toolbar would be incompatible after upgrade
     • We could put something in product (the updated product, Firefox 6+) to message / migrate at that point
   • Rob Strong suggested a better method would be to just have Firefox 3.6.20 check AMO for add-on compatibility data for the toolbar's id
3. Get Google to redirect their updateURL / update service to AMO
   • This would give us the greatest control over marking it as compatible / incompatible for certain versions
   • The compatibility override would also apply to Firefox 4, so those users would see the benefits
   • Not sure if Google is willing to do this, we'll ask
   • Not sure if they do anything different w.r.t signing, update format, etc
   • We could put something in product (the updated product, Firefox 6+) to message / migrate at that point
   • chofmann said if there are multiple add-ons that do the same thing we should pick one for the user to reduce confusion / choice paralysis
     • Rob Strong suggested a multi-XPI for one-click installation of "blessed" add-ons to restore functionality
       • Unclear if this functionality still exists in Firefox 5+