Setting to Disable Auto Update

[envygeeks]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

Bug description

Please allow me to disable auto-update. There is no reason to auto-update, you should instead be notifying me and allowing me to make the final decision on an update, and when to update, especially given all the breaches that have been happening as of late. If you really wish to auto-update without my intervention, please consider the Mac appstore.

--

I do like the idea of being notified and being nagged to update, I do not like the idea of autoupdates without 1.) Me being notified, and 2.) Me being able to decide when, so that I am aware of the fact that MacOS will tell me something was downloaded from the internet without my permission, and me being both surprised and angry because I was never told it was gonna happen.

--

Lest we forget whose computer this is.

[Dyras]

I think the reason it's like this is because there's no "expiration" on Signal-Desktop builds. That means people can use ancient versions indefinitely and screw over people trying to use new features with them.

It would really surprise me if they didn't add this, now with the Signal Foundation stuff and all that

[envygeeks]

Ah that does make sense. Well in that case I'm a little happier to know there was a valid reason!

[ideologysec]

That's still not a valid reason to silently auto-update. The protocol should fall back to "minimum supported version" if the desktop client is older, with an option to download the latest version. As someone who works from a hotspot often enough that I need to manage my mobile data, silent downloads in the background are a huge no-go for me.

[Dyras]

My point was that they would have to add such functionality first, then they would have to add an option to disable auto-update. There's no doubt in my mind it's coming eventually, it's just not a top priority at the moment seeing as they are going through big changes with the Signal Foundation stuff.

[ideologysec]

Maybe it's my perspective as a long time Mac user, but the default I expect is "ask for updates" using something like the Sparkle framework. Yet another reason I dislike Electron - Visual Studio Code pulls the same of downloading and updating with no option other than "off" or "stfu and take what we give you" neither of which are very...respectful or functional.

I don't think that the feature functionality fallback needs to be implemented first, since the Electron framework has an update mechanism built in already, and "hey there's a new update" notification or even just a switch for people who know where to look for it but on by default, would be more than fine.

[envygeeks]

Really I think it should be one of the top priorities, it's not drastically hard to implement (and if I knew enough about Electron I would help do it,) since you would just add a UI option, and modal/alert (if you've done it right, you've a UI framework you either built yourself, or another,) and short-circuit the already existing code which should be decoupled enough from itself to allow such a thing by design (exp: when building software I would never put "check for update", and "update" in the same function, or method.) I would have check_for_and_update_software, _check_for_update, and _update_software.

I do think that if there were protocol versions in older versions then maybe an autoupdate used to be necessary to force, and I do think it's valid enough to not be angry, but given all the compromises of late, I think it wasn't valid enough to last more than a month or two.

[Bairnsfather]

When I drag a program to my Applications folder I know where it’s going; so I type my admin credentials.

When a program pops up a request for my admin credentials because it wants to install stuff I decline. It’s too opaque; will it [the requesting app, not necessarily Signal] only put item(s) in the Applications folder or perhaps it might install items elsewhere? How can I be sure this release is legitimate and not the result of a hacked developer account?

There are just too many security problems with silent automatic updates, without even going into the examples of ordinary updates causing problems.

I block &/or prevent automatic updates so I wish the bandwidth spent downloading it was not wasted. I appreciate being alerted to a new version, that is the first step to me trusting there is a legitimate new version.

[aznnico]

As a work around, I just put this in my host file:

127.0.0.1 updates.signal.org

I don't see signal changing their stance on auto-update, but hopefully they do.

[felixheld]

I hit the issue with automatic updates of the Signal Desktop application on OSX multiple times when being connected to my mobile phone via Bluetooth and using it's mobile data which ate away a sizeable chunk of my mobile data plan. Nagging the user to start an upgrade before downloading the update like Telegram does is a much better option as it avoids mobile data volume getting wasted; especially if that happens multiple time in a month. The assumption that mobile data is basically free is definitely wrong...

[krathalan]

I would like to chime in and add that I use Chocolatey on Windows to manage all of my programs and program updates for me, so every program isn't running its own update service, and so I can update programs without an automatic update service. It would be nice to be able to disable updates for Signal so I could manage it myself. I like having control over my updates.

Even if you add that toggle, you don't have to support older versions. If someone's Signal Desktop version is behind (by one version, two, or whatever is deemed necessary), just disable functionality until they update. Obviously have some sort of user-facing message -- maybe grey out the interface and put a "Signal blue" colored banner across the top saying "Your version of Signal Desktop is out of date. Click here to update".

[ckujau]

Isn't this a duplicate of #1748 ("Make the automatic downloading of updates optional")?

[majkinetor]

@krathalan

I added /NoAutoUpdate param to chocolatey package that implements blocking via hosts file. (majkinetor/au-packages#136)

[teknolog2000]

This is a huge usability problem with Signal. There are updates released every few days, which triggers a notification and icon jumping on MacOS. There needs to be a setting to disable this. I'll have to do the hosts file workaround for now.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

All: It is an extremely bad idea to disable auto-updates for Signal. When we release updates, we don't do so lightly. For those who have disabled it, what is your plan for staying up to date?

[ckujau]

As mentioned elsewhere people may be using a package manager to have their software installed and updated by a system administrator. Even when it's not installed via a package manager: a mere user should not have access to /Applications to update Signal, so even if Signal is able to download the update it won't be able to install it w/o an administrator providing the proper credentials.

I don't know why Signal wants to be special here. Other software packages have the option to enable or disable automatic updates.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@ckujau Once more, we'd be concerned that the updates wouldn't be applied in a timely fashion in that configuration.

As an aside, I would expect users that don't have administrator access to install the application in their user-specific applications directory, instead of /Applications. I believe that SIgnal Desktop, on windows, does not require admin privileges.

[ckujau]

What about testing updates before applying them? Some updates do break stuff, not often maybe, but it has happened. Again, the administrator should apply those updates (and it's her responsibility when failing to do so).

Also, as a user I don't feel comfortable to have write-access to application directories. What's stopping malware to replace the ~/Application/Foobar binary with something else? Writing to /Application/Foobar is much harder because it requires administrator access. The example here applies to all operating systems, with different paths of course.

[envygeeks]

All: It is an extremely bad idea to disable auto-updates for Signal. When we release updates, we don't do so lightly. For those who have disabled it, what is your plan for staying up to date?

I use a "button"?

When we release updates, we don't do so lightly.

If you release updates every few days you are playing fast, light, and loose with your updates. Unless those updates are security issues, your argument for "disabling auto-updates is a bad idea" is fallacious from the get go. If a user has a version that is too out of date, the bests option is to disable their ability to chat with people who have exceeded their current clients ability, that's basic usability. You probably already swap tons of meta, a version string and other basic information that assumes a standard deviation of version parity should be enough.

Are you telling me that every update you literally break compatibility with the last update? Because if you are, then you are playing fast, loose, and light with your updates. You're literally sacrificing people's data (if mobile) and usability so you can ship features fast, that's not usable.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

I think we have everything we need to determine the priority of this feature request. Thanks for weighing in, everyone.