[tor-bugs] #18019 [Tor Browser]: Update on non-en-US alpha bundles results in empty dialog being shown

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#18019: Update on non-en-US alpha bundles results in empty dialog being shown
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 Reporter:  gk                                   |          Owner:  mcs
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:
 Priority:  High                                 |  needs_information
Component:  Tor Browser                          |      Milestone:
 Severity:  Major                                |        Version:
 Keywords:  tbb-usablility, tbb-5.5,             |     Resolution:
  TorBrowserTeam201601                           |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
  Sponsor:                                       |
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Changes (by mcs):

 * status:  assigned => needs_information


Comment:

 Kathy and I created a patch that triggers the prompt from a web progress
 listener and that also only opens it for http and https pages. That fixes
 the problem covered by this ticket and also makes it so users will see the
 prompt even if they never open a new tab (they will be prompted when they
 start to load their first http(s) page).

 However, there is still a problem if the user sets their homepage to an
 http or https URL and then restarts the browser without previously having
 seen the prompt. The result is an empty prompt dialog during startup
 (i.e., the behavior is the same as the original one covered by this
 ticket). That scenario seems much less likely since a user would need to
 restart without ever seeing the prompt, which means without opening any
 other http(s) pages. I wonder what Tails uses for their default home page
 though.

 One solution is to use our new web progress listener approach but add a
 delay before showing the prompt if the URL of the page that is about to be
 loaded matches one of the URLs in the browser.startup.homepage pref. That
 would not change anything when the home page is about:tor but would avoid
 the blank dialog if the homepage is an http(s) page.

 Is that an okay solution?

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/18019#comment:3>
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