Firefox/Features/Installers

Summary

This page captures all workflow and other issues with the installer and channel switcher. We understand that there are tradeoffs and no solution will be perfect. The goal here is understand how it works today, the issues, where we want to end up long term and figure out what changes we can make for Firefox 5 to make sure we can ultimately provide the right experience for all our users.

Specifically we will detail..

  • The goals from a marketing perspective.
  • How things work as of today (5/13/11).
  • Overview of all the various usage scenarios.
  • Analysis of the problems we run into.
  • Breakdown of the technical issues.
  • Options for improvements in the 5.0 timeframe and beyond.

Marketing Goals

Ideally from a marketing perspective, we would like to be building a brand around all the channels and keep this consistent across products (Firefox & Mobile). This also applies to all platforms (Mac, Windows). The Nightly channel is less important here but will be included just for completion. Here's what we are aiming for.

Channel Icon App.name About box
Nightly Nightly icon Firefox Nightly Nightly branded about box
Aurora Aurora icon Firefox Aurora Aurora branded about box
Beta Beta icon Firefox Beta Beta branded about box
Release Firefox icon Firefox Firefox branded about box

Basically this is saying that we would like to use the app name, icon, about box, startup pages etc to convey a distinct brand to our users.

Current State

Today, this is the behavior we see.

Branding

Mac:

Channel Icon App.name About box
Nightly Nightly icon Nightly Minefield branded about box Bug 649526 and Bug 648368
Aurora Aurora icon Aurora Minefield branded about box Bug 649526 and Bug 648368
Beta Firefox icon Firefox Firefox branded about box
Release Firefox icon Firefox Firefox branded about box

Windows:

Channel Icon App.name About box
Nightly Nightly icon Nightly Minefield branded about box Bug 649526 and Bug 648368
Aurora Aurora icon Aurora Minefield branded about box Bug 649526 and Bug 648368
Beta Firefox icon Mozilla Firefox Firefox branded about box
Release Firefox icon Mozilla Firefox Firefox branded about box

Installer/Updater Use Cases

  • Nightly:
    • 1. User installs and runs the Nightly build.
      • Nightly runs side by side with other releases. Users are prompted for regular updates. There is no access to the channel switcher from the nightly build.
  • Aurora:
    • 1. A user downloads the Aurora build from the download page.
      • The user is on the Aurora channel and receives updates for that particular channel.
    • 2. A user is running either Release or Beta and uses the Channel Switcher to download the Aurora build.