fix: Allow disabling of webinstaller files to avoid confusion with ac…

…tual installers (#6575)

Co-authored-by: Guillermo Vaya <guivaya@gmail.com>

.changeset/seven-elephants-sing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"electron-updater": major
+---
+
+fix: Allow disabling of webinstaller files to avoid confusion with actual installers

packages/electron-updater/src/AppUpdater.ts

@@ -51,6 +51,17 @@ export abstract class AppUpdater extends EventEmitter {
    */
   allowDowngrade = false
 
+  /**
+   * Web installer files might not have signature verification, this switch prevents to load them unless it is needed.
+   *
+   * Currently false to prevent breaking the current API, but it should be changed to default true at some point that
+   * breaking changes are allowed.
+   *
+   * @default false
+   */
+
+  disableWebInstaller = false
+
   /**
    * The current application version.
    */
@@ -443,6 +454,7 @@ export abstract class AppUpdater extends EventEmitter {
         updateInfoAndProvider,
         requestHeaders: this.computeRequestHeaders(updateInfoAndProvider.provider),
         cancellationToken,
+        disableWebInstaller: this.disableWebInstaller,
       }).catch(e => {
         throw errorHandler(e)
       })
@@ -644,6 +656,7 @@ export interface DownloadUpdateOptions {
   readonly updateInfoAndProvider: UpdateInfoAndProvider
   readonly requestHeaders: OutgoingHttpHeaders
   readonly cancellationToken: CancellationToken
+  readonly disableWebInstaller?: boolean
 }
 
 function hasPrereleaseComponents(version: SemVer) {

packages/electron-updater/src/NsisUpdater.ts

@@ -31,6 +31,17 @@ export class NsisUpdater extends BaseUpdater {
       task: async (destinationFile, downloadOptions, packageFile, removeTempDirIfAny) => {
         const packageInfo = fileInfo.packageInfo
         const isWebInstaller = packageInfo != null && packageFile != null
+        if (isWebInstaller && downloadUpdateOptions.disableWebInstaller) {
+          throw newError(
+            `Unable to download new version ${downloadUpdateOptions.updateInfoAndProvider.info.version}. Web Installers are disabled`,
+            "ERR_UPDATER_WEB_INSTALLER_DISABLED"
+          )
+        }
+        if (!isWebInstaller && !downloadUpdateOptions.disableWebInstaller) {
+          this._logger.warn(
+            "disableWebInstaller is set to false, you should set it to true if you do not plan on using a web installer. This will default to true in a future version."
+          )
+        }
         if (isWebInstaller || (await this.differentialDownloadInstaller(fileInfo, downloadUpdateOptions, destinationFile, provider))) {
           await this.httpExecutor.download(fileInfo.url, destinationFile, downloadOptions)
         }