Firefox/Projects/Eradicate Startup Dialogs

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Summary

Startup dialogs significantly impact the amount of time it takes users to get on the Web and retrieve a piece of information or complete a task, which is Firefox's primary purpose.

In many cases start up dialogs represent some form of failing, ranging from a failing of engineering (unable to find or implement a cleaner solution), a failing of design (unable to determine the best approach) or a failing of security (delegating a decision so that we can blame the victim). In all of these cases the dialog itself is simply the manifestation of a larger problem that we need to attack. So perhaps "the eradication of start up dialogs" is an overly negative title, this is really more about "solving a range of complex problems, but entirely behind the scenes."

Current Status

Currently working on locating all of the dialogs, and finding solutions to eradicate as many of them as possible.

Next Steps

Getting Bugs filed on every dialog.

Related Bugs

  • Extension updates
    • Automatically update in the background, users can opt-out in the add-ons manager
  • Extensions may not be compatible
  • Updating progress bar
    • bug 307181 Install the update with a separate process so the time to switch over on load is insignificant
  • Default browser
    • Testing profile bug 513492
    • Windows users who already went through the trouble of unchecking the box in the installer bug 433249
    • Firefox incorrectly thinks it's not the default bug 213733
  • "Firefox is already running" dialog
    • Wait a few seconds and try again, kill the process bug 513419
    • Fix slow-shutdown bugs, such as bug 453178
    • Fix shutdown hang bugs, such as bug 479373
    • Gather statistics on why Firefox hangs, like we do for crashes bug 429592
  • Master Password
    • Only request it when it is needed, e.g. not merely because a background tab contains a login form
    • bug 499233, bug 475053 (fixed-1.9.2) Don't ask the master password multiple times.
  • http Auth
    • Content area page instead of a dialog box bug 399583 would also fix spoofability
    • Automatically log in bug 223636
    • Consolidate by login domain (bug 385239?)
  • Choose a client cert (bug 395399?)
  • Possible to get a postdata dialog on session restore?

Might not be worth removing (significant problems):

  • Locked sqllite file
  • Locked profile

Dialogs on exit

  • Save and quit
  • Downloads in progress that can't be resumed

Team

  • Project Lead: faaborg
  • Extensions related work: mossop

Designs

This space intentionally left blank :)

Goals/Use Cases

  • Zero start up dialogs

Non Goals

  • >0 start up dialogs
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