Retaining Nightly users after disabling of legacy extensions

[Ed Morley]

Some context:
- As part of Firefox 57 no longer supporting legacy (non web extension)
add-ons, the `extensions.legacy.enabled` preference was flipped to false in
the Aug 11th Nightly build [1].
- Several backwards incompatible changes have already been made to Nightly
that can break legacy extensions [2].
- The reasoning for the above being that it was desirable to spend as much
of the cycle as possible testing what we're actually going to ship to
end-users in the final 57 release.
- The authors of even some of the most popular extensions have said they
are targeting their finished web extensions at either Firefox 57's release
(>2017-11-14) or when it's in beta (>2017-09-20), rather than now.

For the short term, Nightly users therefore have the following options:
a) Use latest nightly with legacy extensions disabled, and make do without
their extensions.
b) Flip the preference back so the legacy extensions are still loaded.
(However several extensions have already stopped working due to the
non-backwards compatible API changes.)
c) Disable Nightly updates and remain on a Nightly build prior to the
2017-08-11 release.
d) Switch to the beta/release channel. (Some extension authors have been
recommending their users do this sadly)

I've been using the Nightly channel for something like 8 years and normally
have no issue with the regressions that are expected on that channel - but
even for me, option (a) above is a complete non-starter [3]. I'm first
going to try (b), however one of my extensions is already broken (password
manager) only a few days in, and so it's likely that I'll end up having to
fall back to (c).

I'm concerned that there may be many other Nightly users out there who
similarly pick (c)/(d) and thereby reduce our Nightly coverage temporarily,
just as we need it most.

Questions:

1) Were there any estimates about how many Nightly users we think might
either disable updates or switch to the beta channel as a result of the
above? (Especially given recent efforts to try and build up Nightly ADUs,
which may end up being undone)

2) Whilst we have ADUs for Nightly as a whole, are we actively tracking how
many people are running the latest build, so can tell how many people do
(c)?

3) Whilst "testing what we're going to ship in release" and/or giving
extension authors a final "yes we're really doing this in 57" nudge to work
on their web extensions is important, where do we see the tipping point
between that and the loss of coverage from reduced Nightly coverage? Should
we hold off making any more of the backwards-incompatible API changes until
later in the 57 cycle?

4) Even for extensions that already have WIP web extension variants (eg
Adblock [4]), the add-ons manager doesn't automatically upgrade or suggest
a link to them currently. This seems like a quick win to both retain
Nightly users and increase testing of the web extension APIs (and something
we should have done before the breaking API changes IMO). Can we add extra
resources for driving this?

Many thanks,

Ed

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1388946
[2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1347507
[3] For me NoScript and Adblock are essential for securely browsing; the
former doesn't yet have a full web extension variant.
[4] https://downloads.adblockplus.org/devbuilds/adblockplusfirefox/

[Daniel Veditz]

Don't do (c) -- its pointless. You won't be helping us test nightly changes
and will miss any important fixes (especially security ones). Go ahead and
switch to beta if you have to. Your extensions will work, you'll be helping
us ship a good 56, and you'll get security fixes. Hate to lose nightly
testers, but its to be expected with all the churn in this particular
cycle.

-Dan Veditz

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[mlop...@mozilla.com]

This is not a specific solution for Nightly users, but I thought that it should generally known that we are working on a solution for when the same problem occurs with Release channel users.

The TAAR (telemetry aware addon recommendation) project will use legacy addon information to prioritize recommendations for comparable addons selected from a pool of 57-compatible webextensions.

Bug to make appropriate recommendations using legacy addons:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1386272
Curently underway:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1386629

I know this isn't fixing the current Nightly experience, but there are some cycles being spent on this problem in general.

--m

[Honza Bambas]

On 8/13/17 6:42 PM, Ed Morley wrote:
> For the short term, Nightly users therefore have the following options:
> a) Use latest nightly with legacy extensions disabled, and make do without
> their extensions.

There is also a2): find webext based alternatives "by hand" (what I have
done and intend to help those addon developers to improve before 57 goes
to release). Note that in both cases (only two addons I really need to
work - the rest is RIP now) are coming from *different* developers than
the original xpcom-addons authors are.

And here is my question: do we have a story for how to automatically
updated addons of RELEASE channel users going from 56 to 57? Given how
we are gonna market 57, it would be sad that people after updating loose
all their addons. It will be just frustrating and ruin the main goal of
57 effort.

Ed already mentioned that the addons manager doesn't automatically
suggest or even update to webext alternatives. We really should have
something like this SOON - the more automatic or fluent the better.

-hb-

[Andrew Swan]

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Honza Bambas <hba...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Ed already mentioned that the addons manager doesn't automatically suggest
> or even update to webext alternatives. We really should have something
> like this SOON - the more automatic or fluent the better.

There is a "find a replacement" button next to disabled legacy extensions
in about:addons. Ed's original comment was that if, eg, Adblock Plus has a
legacy version and a webextension version, we don't automatically direct
users with the disabled legacy version to the webextension. That's mostly
because we don't actually have a straightforward way to do so, but it's
also only an issue for users on non-release channels.

-Andrew

[Chris Hutten-Czapski]

For those interested, preliminary data shows a continuing increase in the
Nightly population since 57. The number of users using Nightly 57 on August
17 was the highest number of users on any day on any Nightly version
since... well, our data retention policy cuts out at 6 months, so since at
least February 23. This continues the general growth of Nightly we've been
seeing since July with 56.

For the buildids, I just did a quick count of Nightly57 "main" pings
submitted on Aug 17 and found that over 90% are from after the 11th. Not
sure how normal that is (some people take forever to update their nightly),
but it puts a limit on how many users are purposefully "holding back".

Yes, I'm being purposefully vague on the numbers. I did say "preliminary
data" you'll notice. :)

:chutten

[Andrew McKay]

If an extension updates to a WebExtension, users will automatically
get that update.

If the author or another author creates an alternative then a user
will have to find that.

The recommendations are being populated and other changes are being
made. For example, on September 1st only WebExtensions will be
featured on AMO (as opposed to extensions that expect to upgrade). The
recommendation tool on AMO is being populated with add-ons any
suggestions welcome as per the thread here:
https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/favorite-webextensions/17087.

We are specifically and consciously focusing on release here and
giving the extension developers time to upgrade their extensions.

On 14 August 2017 at 13:16, Honza Bambas <hba...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> On 8/13/17 6:42 PM, Ed Morley wrote:
>>
>> For the short term, Nightly users therefore have the following options:
>> a) Use latest nightly with legacy extensions disabled, and make do without
>> their extensions.
>
>
> There is also a2): find webext based alternatives "by hand" (what I have
> done and intend to help those addon developers to improve before 57 goes to
> release). Note that in both cases (only two addons I really need to work -
> the rest is RIP now) are coming from *different* developers than the
> original xpcom-addons authors are.
>
> And here is my question: do we have a story for how to automatically updated
> addons of RELEASE channel users going from 56 to 57? Given how we are gonna
> market 57, it would be sad that people after updating loose all their
> addons. It will be just frustrating and ruin the main goal of 57 effort.
>

> Ed already mentioned that the addons manager doesn't automatically suggest
> or even update to webext alternatives. We really should have something like
> this SOON - the more automatic or fluent the better.
>

> -hb-

[Alessio Placitelli]

2017-08-24 0:00 GMT+02:00 Andrew McKay <amc...@mozilla.com>:

> If an extension updates to a WebExtension, users will automatically
> get that update.
>
> If the author or another author creates an alternative then a user
> will have to find that.
>
> The recommendations are being populated and other changes are being
> made. For example, on September 1st only WebExtensions will be
> featured on AMO (as opposed to extensions that expect to upgrade).

Does that mean that AMO won't show nor have data for any legacy addon?

[Andrew Swan]

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 12:03 AM, Alessio Placitelli <
aplac...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> 2017-08-24 0:00 GMT+02:00 Andrew McKay <amc...@mozilla.com>:
> > The recommendations are being populated and other changes are being
> > made. For example, on September 1st only WebExtensions will be
> > featured on AMO (as opposed to extensions that expect to upgrade).
>
>
> Does that mean that AMO won't show nor have data for any legacy addon?
>

No, "featured" in this context means extensions that are shown in the
curated list of "Featured Extensions" on the AMO home page.
I don't recall a timeline being announced for actually removing legacy
extensions from AMO. Jorge provided some more detail in a recent blog post:
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/08/10/upcoming-changes-compatibility/

-Andrew

[Jorge Villalobos]

Legacy add-ons will continue to be hosted on AMO. We'll probably remove
them once ESR 52 is no longer supported, next year.

Jorge

[sime....@gmail.com]

Fwiw, after Adblock Plus stopped working, I switched to Ghostery. I also have Firefox’s Tracking Protection on at all times. I am confident that these two tools in combination keep me safe while browsing.