Brave-browser: Support offline installers for Windows

[srirambv]

Description

Follow up to #476. Currently there is no offline installer available for Windows, only Stub installer which always downloads the latest build and installs. Test should be done against #476 once offline installers are available. Per @RyanJarv we should be able to test offline installer with command line options to verify browser launches upon upgrade but ideally just running the offline installer should update and relaunch the browser.

Marking as backlog as there is no support for offline installer for release builds.

cc: @bbondy

[RyanJarv]

This may end up being a blocker for testing https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/687.

The method I was using to downgrade before doesn't seem to be working now.

[thany]

I stumbled upon this issue while looking for the download to Brave.

I noticed that I can only download a stub. Being a browser that is all about privacy and security, the idea of downloading a program to download a program is even more silly, and potentially dangerous (especially if it requests, and is given, elevated privileges, which most installers do).

Why do I need to download a program to download a program? What is wrong with downloading the program straight away??

[crazy-max]

@thany See #1606

[thany]

It doesn't say where the installers are, nor does it fix the issue that a stub installer exists in the first place.

[srirambv]

@thany the link @crazy-max shared talks where to find the offline installer which gets downloaded. The stub installer can be run without any elevated privileges as well. User has the choice when running the stub installer to continue installing with elevated privileges or not. You can always click No in UAC prompt and it will install without any elevated privileges. Offline installers will run with elevated privileges and user doesn't get a choice to say No in UAC prompt.

As far as I know none of the leading browsers provide offline installers. Its always a stub installer that securely connects and downloads the setup and installs it.

[thany]

@srirambv You didn't explain why there has to be a stub installer, and why it is so vitally important to have one by going so far as to removing the full installers from any plain sight. I just don't understand that.

User has the choice when running the stub installer to continue installing with elevated privileges or not.

All the less reason to have a stub installer in the first place. If the user can download a stub, they can also download the full installer. Their (current) browser is perfectly capable of downloading a file, and there is absolutely no reason why a stub installer has to do that for them. There is no difference between downloading a stub, and downloading a full installer from the user's perspective.

As far as I know none of the leading browsers provide offline installers. Its always a stub installer that securely connects and downloads the setup and installs it.

Most browser vendors provide full installers, but not prominently. They can be reached by two or three extra clicks. The only exception where full installers are "impossible", is Edge. And about the "securely" thing: in a real browser, the user has the ability to verify whether the connection is secure (or secure enough for their needs). A stub installer requires blind trust, which cannot reasonably be expected.

To oppose your statement: as far as I know, almost no program provides stub installers and no full installers. Almost every program out there is provided by downloading a full installer. Only some browsers seem to be against providing full installers, like Opera. Chrome and Firefox do provide full installers.

A Dutch saying: if they jump into a ditch, would you too?
It means: if they do something, do you blindly follow them, whether it is a good persue or not?

It seems to me, that this is simply a trend and nothing more. That maybe it seems jolly or whatever to "hide" the full installer behind a program that downloads it for you. If we cannot find any other reason than that, please stop doing it.

[srirambv]

You didn't explain why there has to be a stub installer, and why it is so vitally important to have one by going so far as to removing the full installers from any plain sight.

The current offline installers is a silent installer which works in background and user doesn't see any UAC prompt. This is the reason we have stub installers which prompts UAC permission while installing and decides to install in local profile if user rejects the UAC prompt.

A Dutch saying: if they jump into a ditch, would you too?
It means: if they do something, do you blindly follow them, whether it is a good persue or not?

That's the whole point of creating this issue to create standalone installer. Please understand that since it is based on Chromium, we need to customize it to our needs it takes time and we are already working on it. Everything doesn't happen over night.

Almost every program out there is provided by downloading a full installer.

Every program is not the same and can't be built in the exact same way. A lot of customization has to be done so that whatever is delivered is correct.

I hope this clears up your concerns about stub installer and why it is being used and the reason for us to create an issue to have standalone installers. _If you have a working solution to this problem you are more than welcome to contribute to the project by creating a PR and helping the team achieve this goal_

[bbondy]

We had to remove full installers until this work is completed (which as I understand it is close) because the non stub installers would install a build that doesn't update. We don't want users installing a build that is not updatable because that would put them at a security risk. Hoping we have the full offline installers which do update soon.

[code2exe]

I once tried to download from the brave website about a week ago and it was the full installer but i didn't have much data so I cancelled the download. Today, I want to download it and i can't find the offline installer on the official website and I don't want to go through third parties
This stub installer is really slow to download; why not just leave the offline install option; that is far better

[soldcake]

(left one thumb up and one sad face in first post)
looking forward for full installer (release channel) so that i can download once and install to multiple muchine at home with slow internet....

[simonhong]

Finally, we released windows offline installer(BraveBrowserStandaloneSetup.exe) in https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases.

[ghost]

I'd like to try _Brave Browser_ but unfortunately https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases displays off-line installers only for the _Dev channel_. I never on-line install whatever software. Why is it so complicated to have an off-line installer made available, at least for the latest _Release channel_?

[crazy-max]

@StanGets Expand assets... :

[ghost]

@crazy-max , I got it, thanks ;=)
So after all it's not _so complicated to have an off-line installer made available_. Only not intuitively found if you're not a fine connoisseur of the place ... (lol).

[Dogers]

Any chance of getting this on the main page somewhere now? :)

To counter the point made by @srirambv - Firefox have a couple of options for full installers available from this page: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ . The Chrome guys call it "Chrome Enterprise" which comes bundled with some GPO stuff for business, but full installers available here too: https://cloud.google.com/chrome-enterprise/browser/download/

[temporarium]

I, too, would prefer an easy-to-find repository ala https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

[bsclifton]

cc: @rebron RE: making full installers available (they're already available on GitHub at https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases, but it takes some work to find the one you need)

[noblepirate]

please offline\standalone installer for 64-bit Windows, thank you in advance!

[rebron]

Hi @noblepirate Standalone installers already exist, see...BraveBrowserStandaloneSetup.exe
here for example -> https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/tag/v1.1.22

We need to make this easier for people to find though. cc: @Brave-Matt, @hollons

[mikeyww]

This Windows batch script gets the latest stable release.

@echo off
SETLOCAL
TITLE Brave download
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Get wget from https://eternallybored.org/misc/wget/
REM Update the path to wget below
SET wget=wget.exe
REM ---------------------------------------
SET html=%TEMP%\braveReleasePage.txt
SET app=%ProgramFiles(x86)%\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe
SET ver=
SET oldVer=
REM --------------------------------------------
echo:
echo  888888b.
echo  888  "88b
echo  888  .88P
echo  8888888K.  888d888 8888b.  888  888  .d88b.
echo  888  "Y88b 888P"      "88b 888  888 d8P  Y8b
echo  888    888 888    .d888888 Y88  88P 88888888
echo  888   d88P 888    888  888  Y8bd8P  Y8b.
echo  8888888P"  888    "Y888888   Y88P    "Y8888
echo:
REM --------------------------------------------
echo This file: %~0
echo:
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
echo %app%
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Get the current program version
IF EXIST "%app%" (
 SET $app=!app:\=\\!
 FOR /F "usebackq tokens=2 skip=2 delims=," %%G IN (`"""%WINDIR%\System32\wbem\WMIC.exe"" DATAFILE where NAME='!$app!' get Version /format:csv"`) DO SET oldVer=%%G
 REM Strip major version number
 SET oldVer=!oldVer:~3!
) ELSE (
 echo:
 echo Brave program was not found.
)
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Get the version of the latest release
REM -N timestamping
REM -q quiet
REM -O output document
REM -T network timeout in seconds
REM -t number of tries
%wget% -N -q -T 5 -t 2 -O "%html%" https://brave.com/latest/
FOR /F "skip=400 delims=" %%G IN (%html%) DO (
 SET line=%%G
 SET line=!line:^<=^^^<!
 SET line=!line:^>=^^^>!
 SET line=!line:^&=^^^&!
 SET line=!line:^|=^^^|!
 REM Look for the first "Release notes" line containing the version number
 echo !line!|FINDSTR /I /R /C:"Release Notes <strong>V[1-9]\.[0-9]\.[0-9][0-9]*</strong>" >NUL && GOTO :next
)
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Handle error
echo:
echo Version could not be identified.
GOTO :done
REM ---------------------------------------
:next
REM Get the version number from the text line
IF EXIST "%html%" DEL "%html%"
FOR /F "tokens=7,8,9* delims=V.^<" %%H IN ("!line!") DO SET ver=%%H.%%I.%%J
echo:
IF NOT EXIST "%app%" GOTO :download
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Display the current version
echo Installed version: !oldVer!
echo:
REM ---------------------------------------
REM Download
:download
CHOICE /M "Download version   !ver!"
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 EXIT
REM This downloads the latest 64-bit version
START "Download" "https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v!ver!/brave_installer-x64.exe"
REM ---------------------------------------
echo:
echo Done.
REM --------------------------------------------
:done
echo:
CHOICE /C EY /N /M "(E)xit?"
EXIT