Opt-in activation for plugins/Test Plan

Opt-in activation for plugins

Feature	Status	Lead engineer	QA Lead	Status
Opt-in activation for plugins	Development in progress	Jared Wein	Paul Silaghi	OK

Summary

• Meant to help with multiple scenarios:

• • Performance: Plugins consume significant resources, both individually (i.e. Java starting because a given page requested it), and in aggregate (i.e. Flash consuming 30% of the CPU because of many ads and movies)
  • Security: Plugins are the most common source of user compromise, so not running them by default provides a defense against drive-by attacks, while still enabling them to run on sites where the user desires(YouTube, intranet, whatever).
  • Accidental/malicious install: Plugins can be installed without user interaction or consent, causing potential security and stability issues
  • Chrome has implemented something similar: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/03/mini-newsletter-from-your-google-chrome.html

References

• Feature Wiki page

Use Cases

• Some software installs a plugin the user is not aware of. The first time the plugin is activated by a given page, the user is:
  • given a warning or
  • plugin is click-to-play until the user actives it
• User has an up-to-date version of Flash or some other common plugin
  • plugin is click-to-play to reduce resource consumption and risk of zero-day security exploits or
  • plugin plays automatically because its popular and considered to be currently safe
• User has a vulnerable plugin with a known security issue, but no update available
  • User cannot run plugin or
  • User can run plugin after scary warning
• User has a vulnerable plugin with a known security issue, and an update is available
  • User is prompted to update
  • User cannot run plugin
  • User can run plugin after scary warning to update first
• User is tired of always clicking to play a given plugin (i.e. YouTube, or their favorite Java game site)
  • A user has clicked on this four times in X days, so automatically enable this plugin on this site until user revokes this decision (about:permissions?) and/or remember decision for Y days after last click
  • Jruderman has suggested a context menu instead of a click - this is a mitigation against click jacking. Could provide "Now/Always/Never" choices.

Test Cases

• The test cases for this feature can be viewed here.

Important Bugs

• Implementation bug 711552 - Create click to play UI for desktop
• 737508 - Add the ability to remember plugin-activation settings
• 730318 - Opt-in activated plugins should use internal APIs to keep track of plugin activation
• 711618 - implement basic click to play permission model

Other Bugs

• 549697 - NEW - Add click-to-start form of disabled plugins

Not Tested

• TBD

Sign off Criteria

• All the test cases were executed.
• All the major bugs have been fixed.