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Confusing names of installer files

cwisniewski

With all the problems going on recently with Sophos for Mac intermittenly halting in its tracks for users running Mountain Lion and not auto-updating correctly, which affected me as well, I visited the Sophos site in order to download the 'latest' version of the installer so as to reinstall the product on my Mac computers. According to posts In the forum, this latest release is supposed to be named "8.0.8." When one vists the Sophos download page they are offered two choices:

Download for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
Download for OS X 10.4 - 10.7

The first link results in savosx_80_he.dmg being downloaded; the second results in savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg being downloaded. 

Though the files names that come down should be clearer (why is "8.0.8" not part of the name of a DMG file that installs version 8.0.8 of the product?), savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg refererences closely enough Apple's 10.8 operating system that one can assume that the correct DMG file was downloaded and should be installed. However, when one opens savosx_80_he.10.8+.dmg they are confronted with a finder window (containing two items, "Before You Install.html" and "Sophos Ant-Virus Home Edition.pkg") that is titled "Sophos Anti-Virus Home edition OS X 10.5+." That window title is totally misleading, especially for users who are are mindful that they are installing a version of the software that is supposed to be different than that which was designed for "OS X 10.4-10.7." What's worse, in my opinion, is that the "Before You Install" file that's proviuded in your DMG file has no reference whatsoever to the operating system version or application version, so the end user has no way of determing whether she or he is about to install the wrong file. Seeing "10.5" in the title caused me to re-download the file once more.  It's not a big deal, but it's an uncessary inconvenience that should have been eliminated by employing better quality assurance procedures or better product design.  

If one downloads and opens the savosx_80_he.dmg file, they are presented with what looks like the identical files. That is, the "Before You Install" readme file says nothing about which version of the operating system or application version is  targeted by the DMG. Fortunately, however, the title of the savosx_80_he.dmg is "Sophos Anti-Virus Home edition OS X 10.4+," which corresponds to the download page's text "Download for OS X 10.4 - 10.7." 

I would have chalked this up to a simple matter of an inadvertent and short-lived error, but then learned, while perusing your message board, that as long ago as July 30th, Sophos was notified of the confusion (see the 30 Jul 2012 1:25p posting by jbstanford in the Sophos Antivirus for Mac and OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" thread within the "Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition" discussion forum). Sophos has certainly posted updates to their web site since then. Thus, I'm beginning to agree with others, most recently Travis Ormandy who recently wrote of Sophos's inability to handle timely updates to the engine itself, even when friendly forces are trying to help the company out (http://tinyurl.com/c8vb9cq). I know that QA resources are not unlimited -- for I have had the pleasure and heartache of managing such tasks for software releases myself -- but you should be making it easier for your customers to rely on your judgement, not harder. And if your business model is to not provide direct customer care to users of your free application, then it's all the more important to make sure that even the most mundane of tasks -- installing the correct edition of your software -- are as self-documenting and as clear as possible. I hope you fix the title of the DMG window sooner than later and also reconsider the physical names of the installer files that you provide. 

:1010608


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  • 0

    Hi there,

    Thanks for your comments. I appreciate that the current situation is not ideal. We want to move back to having only one installer and to be frank, I would rather our engineering team spent their efforts on that, than on fixing more cosmetic - albeit slightly confusing - issues in the existing state.

    Here's some background to the current situation: 

    Both installers install exactly the same version of the product. The product they install will work on any OS X version from 10.4 to 10.8. If you download an installer and it runs successfully, then it will install the product and everything will be OK. The only differences is in the platforms that the installers support, and which is the optimal one to use.

    The installer for 10.4-10.7 uses the old structure of installer which has been supported for a long time. It works well for us in particular because it allows us to easily create a copy of the installation files that can be used to stage updates. Unfortunately this old form of installer is not compatible with the package signing requirements enforced by Gatekeeper in OS X 10.8. If you download this installer on Mountain Lion, Gatekeeper in its default configuration will not allow it to run. If you disable Gatekeeper or invoke the installer in a way that avoids Gatekeeper, it will run fine on Mountain Lion and install the product correctly.

    The installer that we recommend for Mountain Lion will work fine on any version of OS X from 10.5 up. It is a flat package format and is signed so that Gatekeeper will allow it to run. It does have the drawback that the after installation, the first time the product tries to do an auto update, it will have to download all the component files again because the flat packaged format prevents us  generating the staged copy at install time.

    So although the 'Mountain Lion' installer will run on any platform from 10.5 up, and this is reflected in the image on the DMG window, we recommend on the web site that you only use this package for 10.8. Rather than explain all of this in full and force you to process all that information before downloading, we just provide a link which will get you a version that works.

    In short, if you download it, and it works, then it is the right file and installs the right product. I agree we could make this clearer, but this has not been a high priority issue.

    In the longer term, we want to get back to just having one installer and are working on redesigning the installation process to achieve this - and to improve it in other ways too.

    Thanks again for your input and for the time you took to explain your concerns.

    Regards

    Rich Baldry
    Product Manager, Mac
    SOPHOS

    :1010728
Reply
  • 0

    Hi there,

    Thanks for your comments. I appreciate that the current situation is not ideal. We want to move back to having only one installer and to be frank, I would rather our engineering team spent their efforts on that, than on fixing more cosmetic - albeit slightly confusing - issues in the existing state.

    Here's some background to the current situation: 

    Both installers install exactly the same version of the product. The product they install will work on any OS X version from 10.4 to 10.8. If you download an installer and it runs successfully, then it will install the product and everything will be OK. The only differences is in the platforms that the installers support, and which is the optimal one to use.

    The installer for 10.4-10.7 uses the old structure of installer which has been supported for a long time. It works well for us in particular because it allows us to easily create a copy of the installation files that can be used to stage updates. Unfortunately this old form of installer is not compatible with the package signing requirements enforced by Gatekeeper in OS X 10.8. If you download this installer on Mountain Lion, Gatekeeper in its default configuration will not allow it to run. If you disable Gatekeeper or invoke the installer in a way that avoids Gatekeeper, it will run fine on Mountain Lion and install the product correctly.

    The installer that we recommend for Mountain Lion will work fine on any version of OS X from 10.5 up. It is a flat package format and is signed so that Gatekeeper will allow it to run. It does have the drawback that the after installation, the first time the product tries to do an auto update, it will have to download all the component files again because the flat packaged format prevents us  generating the staged copy at install time.

    So although the 'Mountain Lion' installer will run on any platform from 10.5 up, and this is reflected in the image on the DMG window, we recommend on the web site that you only use this package for 10.8. Rather than explain all of this in full and force you to process all that information before downloading, we just provide a link which will get you a version that works.

    In short, if you download it, and it works, then it is the right file and installs the right product. I agree we could make this clearer, but this has not been a high priority issue.

    In the longer term, we want to get back to just having one installer and are working on redesigning the installation process to achieve this - and to improve it in other ways too.

    Thanks again for your input and for the time you took to explain your concerns.

    Regards

    Rich Baldry
    Product Manager, Mac
    SOPHOS

    :1010728
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