Bug #17114

Adjust Tor Browser updates settings for 9.0

Added by intrigeri 2019-10-02 09:16:46 . Updated 2019-10-04 11:38:28 .

Status:
Resolved
Priority:
Elevated
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Tails_4.0
Start date:
Due date:
% Done:

100%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Browser
Deliverable for:

Description

See attached screenshot → I’m wondering what will happen when one starts an older Tails, before upgrading, and a new Tor Browser is available. I bet the user will be told that their Tor Browser is outdated. An update could even be attempted and fail due to AppArmor + DAC permissions. All this could make UX pretty painful around the time when we release 4.1.

I’ve read on tb-enterprise@mozilla.org that prefs to disable updates were removed from Firefox (and Thunderbird) 68.

Apparently the new way to handle this is to add a file named policies.json in the distribution folder, with content like:

 {
   "policies": {
     "DisableAppUpdate": true
   }
 }

For details, see:

I expect Debian’s firefox and thunderbird 68 package has done this already so we can probably steal the solution from there.

Files

updates.png (36014 B) intrigeri, 2019-10-02 09:11:26

Subtasks

Related issues

Related to Tails - Bug #17159: Tor Browser displays an "Update Failed" pop-up Confirmed
Blocks Tails - Feature #16209: Core work: Foundations Team Confirmed

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-02 09:18:18

#2 Updated by hefee 2019-10-03 08:36:51

  • Assignee set to hefee

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-04 08:14:59

  • Assignee changed from hefee to intrigeri

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-04 09:57:43

  • Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress

app.update.disabledForTesting

app.update.url

#5 Updated by segfault 2019-10-04 11:10:46

On a build which has Tor Browser 9.0a6, I changed these settings in /usr/local/lib/tor-browser/browser/omni.ja:

-pref("app.update.enabled", false);
+pref("app.update.auto", false);
+pref("app.update.disabledForTesting", true);
+pref("app.update.doorhanger", false);
+pref("app.update.url", "https://non-existent.tails.boum.org/torbrowser/update_3/%CHANNEL%/%BUILD_TARGET%/%VERSION%/%LOCALE%");

After deleting ~/.tor-browser, Tor Browser does not display an update notification anymore and “About Tor Browser” says “Tor Browser is up to date”.

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-04 11:37:40

  • Status changed from In Progress to Resolved
  • % Done changed from 0 to 100

Applied in changeset commit:tails|e43247dd2558dd391342855796e18c3186a43807.

#7 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-04 11:38:28

  • Assignee deleted (intrigeri)

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2019-10-17 08:12:43

  • related to Bug #17159: Tor Browser displays an "Update Failed" pop-up added