OS and Software > Mozilla Software > [Mozilla] Firefox 12.0 / 10.0.4 ESR

[Mozilla] Firefox 12.0 / 10.0.4 ESR

The Mozilla Blog:
Firefox Introduces a Simpler Update Process and More Than 85 Improvements to Developer Tools

User control of updates is still in your hands! (options)
For more information on Silent Updates please read:

• What is the Mozilla Maintenance Service?

• Options Window - Advanced Panel - Update Tab

• More detailed information (incl. x64 users) see
the Wiki - Silent Updates Service

reply to chachazz
Fx v12 is quite snappy.

reply to chachazz
Speaking of updating, how does one check for available updates without triggering the download and installation of an update? I have updates disabled in options, but clicking 'check for updates' in the About Firefox location always triggers the full update process.

The program will check and notify you when an update is available.......it works very well.

I have it on 'never check...', and rely on reading daily what's available, and find out any bugs etc before downloading. Are you saying that I need to swap to that setting to know what version Mozilla has available?

There's no way of checking from within the browser, and keep my 'never check' setting?

In other words, is there a way to manually query what version is available without triggering the download and installation of any possible updates.

reply to chachazz
It's very complicated, but I'll oblige; Help / Check For Updates...

reply to EdmundGerber

It seems apparent to me that Mozilla has been recruiting new devs from the ranks of malware developers. I'd probably switch to another browser if one existed which offered the features I want--but there isn't one. As it is, I only use the PortableApps releases, so I haven't encountered this particular problem yet. Mozilla has become one of those organizations that I just don't trust anymore, and Firefox is now simply "the devil I know".

I think you are going a bit too far there. The devs that spoke to this in Mozilla NGs have been around a long time and they care about Fx but appear hell bent on "protecting" the naive users that make up the majority of users and don't see any reason to pay attention to the needs/gripes of their long time knowledgeable users. I think there should be room for seeing to the needs/wants of both and there was BEFORE Chrome started getting popular.

I think it is the extensions that keep most folks with Fx.

Fx has lost even more market share recently and IE has gained, surprisingly, quite a bit.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

reply to EdmundGerber

Hi plencnerb ,

said by plencnerb:

said by EdmundGerber:

If that is the only way, then mozilla is surely headed in the wrong direction.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but why would you NOT want to go to the official web page of the software that you are using to check for updates? Does it actually take that much time to open your web browser, type in that address, and see what the latest version is? ....
Sorry for the long rant and post. It just amazes me that people want everything done for them, and won't take the effort to look something up or do the research themselves.

--Brian

reply to plencnerb
Mozilla.org got blocked in my hosts file as did firefox website back when Mozilla decided to spy on its users. ( I read the mozilla.dev.security.policy NG and have for many years). I don't need updates except for stability. My Fx 10 ESR was running fine. It wasn't unstable. It didn't need a security or stability update. It runs on a guest machine where the OS is XP Pro SP2 with NO security patches. I do have ProcessGuard to protect the machine but I have tried and tried to infect that machine purposely and I have never been successful. If it did ever get infected, I would simply revert to an earlier snapshot or, on Microsoft's VPC, I would just shut down choosing to drop disk and that would fix any infection as everything done since the last boot of Vista Ultimate that is on Microsoft's virtual PC would be dropped at shutdown. (I also run Vista Ultimate, no service packs, on a virtual pc and have never gotten infected there either). My host machine runs XP Pro SP2 with Process Guard and Avira 8 (not the current version 12) to protect it. I'm not big on updates. I don't have Flash or Java on my host machine except on IE6 which I do not use except for speed tests that require Java and Flash (otherwise I would not have either application on any machine or any browser. I didn't get a computer to watch Flash movies. I hate Flash). I can no longer use Java on Fx on my guest machines because I have an older version of Java (again used ONLY for speed tests that I own the software for the main tests - MySpeed) that Mozilla decided to block recently. It works fine on IE8 on those virtual machines. So, I find myself using IE more instead of Fx. I don't want to upgrade Java just so Mozilla lets it work. I'm tired of the devs attitude that ONLY ignorant of computers user matter to them.

Without this site, I really could do without a computer. I need a new computer as my current one has a bulging capacitor, plus it is a little over six years old, so its days are limited. When dslr was down for so long, I seriously was thinking that if it did not come back that I would not buy a new computer and I don't have a cell phone at all so I would just do without the internet as I need it for buying plane tickets at the lowest price that are not available if you call, or go to a travel agent, and for this site. Otherwise, I don't care much for the net these days since Web2 took over. I loved Web1 and I hate Web2.

Yeah, I suppose Mozillazine would have something about the latest Fx version but it is mostly a help forum. My gripe here is that Mozilla devs should have a good grasp of the English language and if a button says CHECK FOR UPDATES that is what it should do and it should NOT do other things also. The language for the button should be changed or the button removed.

As for sneakily changing my settings on each update, well that is simply inexcusable. Mozilla has defended it over the years as being needed for the computer dummies. Mozilla thereby indicating that the reason Fx got started and grew is irrelevant to them now and they presently care only about ignorant of computer users nd the rest of us users should just suck it up. My response to their arrogance has been to not upgrade Fx. I had 1.5 until March 2011.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

reply to plencnerb

said by plencnerb:

said by EdmundGerber:

If that is the only way, then mozilla is surely headed in the wrong direction.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but why would you NOT want to go to the official web page of the software that you are using to check for updates? Does it actually take that much time to open your web browser, type in that address, and see what the latest version is?

I will say that doing those kind of steps is something I do about once a month for the applications that I have installed. I'm talking about things like Winamp, Trillian, Firefox, Waterfox, Thunderbird, and so on. These programs are all free to download, and I have a 2nd Hard drive in my system where I store them. This way, when I re-build my system (or work on a friend or family members computer), I don't have to go back to the web to get everything. Of course, one must keep up to date on all these applications, and to me, the best way to do that is go to each web page, DO THE RESEARCH, and see what the current version is. If there is a newer version then what I have stored on my 2nd hard drive, I research it, to see what changes were made, bug fixes, or whatever. Even if I don't want to upgrade my version right then and there, I'll still download it from the webpage, and store it for later use.

And this statement just totally blows my mind.

said by Mele20:

There was NO information about the update (and this forum was offline). I was puzzled because ESR is not supposed to be getting hardly any updates. I wanted to know all about it before I allowed it.

While I love this site, and I find the find the information here to be very informative, and up to date on a lot of things, I cannot see why you would use it as your ONLY SOURCE of information. Just because DSLR is down, does that also mean you cannot go to mozilla.org and check the status of updates? Quite a few of us post links directly to Mozilla's web page when new versions of any of their products come out (Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Firefox, etc). How do you think we know that? We actually take the time and the effort to go out to Mozilla's webpage, do the research, and see what is new. This goes along with what I said above.

Sure, it is nice when the program "checks in" for you, but the problem is, each program is written by a different group of people, and they may not all work the same way. This is why I always manually check the actual webpage for updates.

Which, leads me to this

said by Mele20:

I was so angry that I was not given the choice of declining it entirely at that time (or on the next start of Fx) and that Fx evidently had sneakily changed my preferences on the security update that I did about a month ago from "never check" to "automatically check and install" that I uninstalled Fx right then. Several days later, I reverted to a month old snapshot (my most recent on the virtual machine) and I looked at Fx 10 settings and sure enough my chosen setting for never check for updates had been reset to automatic check and install.

Again, call me over-cautious, but when I do an install (or an upgrade) of ANY application, I go though and look at all the settings to make sure things are still set the way they were before. Sure, things should remain the same if you are doing an upgrade, but did you write the application? Do you know what the program is actually doing? Yes, if it is an upgrade, settings that you have made should be left as they are, and not modified. However, mistakes do happen, and sometimes, things do get reset back to a "default" value, or the "default" value may be changed by the powers that be. I do this for a few reasons: First, its an upgrade. Maybe there is some new features that were not in the old version that I may want to use (or not use) in this one. Second, is to verify that all my settings that I had are still the same way they were before the upgrade. Now, in you case, it sounds like there was a change that was made, and I think the better thing to do here would be to let those at Firefox know about it, IN A CALM WAY. Send them an e-mail and let them know the problem, so that it can be corrected in future releases of the application.

Sorry for the long rant and post. It just amazes me that people want everything done for them, and won't take the effort to look something up or do the research themselves.

--Brian

reply to Bobby_Peru

said by Bobby_Peru:

Hi plencnerb ,

said by plencnerb:

said by EdmundGerber:

If that is the only way, then mozilla is surely headed in the wrong direction.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but why would you NOT want to go to the official web page of the software that you are using to check for updates? Does it actually take that much time to open your web browser, type in that address, and see what the latest version is? ....
Sorry for the long rant and post. It just amazes me that people want everything done for them, and won't take the effort to look something up or do the research themselves.

--Brian

You _all_ have valid points.

While going to each application's webpage to check for updates, and other information, is great, and keeping an archive of the different versions can be helpful (Mr. Tech used to facilitate automatically doing just that with Fireweasel extensions, until that was FUBARED, by MoFo, iIrc. FEBE now can help archive.), once the application builds in the feature of being able to _check_ internally for updates, many folks may just find it more efficient to rely on using it. Of course, they then may not be aware of trivial to crucial information that a stop by the pages would have provided.

I use the check-for-updates feature to let me know if an update exists. If it does, that signals that I might should investigate. Update dialogues often contain explanations, and/or links to change-logs, and/or homepages, and/or other information, to help one make a more informed decision as the few decades-old-question 'To download and install, or to just download, or to not download and/or install' at the precise moment.

I stopped using what was Thunderbird's internal update manual checker, as for quite some time MoFo has apparently decried that simply checking for such availability suddenly also equates to someone's desire for immediate installation, should an update exist.

Here, from Phoenix, thru the various incarnations to the present (and long past the good-old-days of "security-through obscurity") it is the _customization/configuration_ through _extensions_ and themes that ARE the Weasel.

Running a lot of extensions (mid-forties currently in 11.x, down from over 60 very recently in 3.x), and a theme, presents a few challenges (much more so for the coders, than me, just a user):

1) No conflicts amongst existing extensions.
2) No conflicts between existing extensions and the existing Fx version.
3) No conflicts between updated extensions.
4) No conflicts between updated extensions and Fx.
5) Add a Theme into the mix.
6) Possibly add an external application or three. And there are Plugins.

7) And then try for no conflicts, or manageable conflicts, when Fx itself is updated.

8) Now do all that while actually _using_ browser for something other than keeping it, and it's components up-to-date, running with 50-100 open tabs, for work and play.

Sure, it makes for a more informed user, when they check in on each of their application's homepages regularly, but this is also a tool, even if it is sometimes (often...?) a tool for fun (and the "fun" of itself).

NoScript is updated by GM (The Hardest Working Man In Extensionbiz), so often, that I gave up keeping up with the details of each release some time ago, even though it will open a webpage for you to do just that. Piro's English is, better than my Japanese, but.... There are 40+ more just in Fx. I also will sometimes delay non-critical updates, as with 40-60 mini-apps and a browser, even with out NS, they can occur quite often.

It is each user who should be able to choose trade-offs, when conflicts arise.

A security update to fix a critical vulnerability being exploited is far different than a feature addition, or tweak.

Being able to click an internal button in Fx, be prompted that an update exists, then either be shown the what and why, or provided with a link to that information, and then to decide when to install it (if at all), is an efficient manner of keeping the software up-to-date, on ones own terms, and sometimes that may mean following the links to investigate, and/or going to forums, other research, or postponing the installation, pending allocating the time to research the update for reports of features/conflicts/problems, or sometimes just choosing "ALLOW" with a nod to "feeling lucky" gods, and FEBE/MozbackUp (or more) just in case.

** What would really be great is for MoFo and the Compatibility Reporter extension to allow checking Compatibility Reports of extension Updates, _before_ they are selected for download and install. **

Perhaps this latest reported MoFo "feature" in Fx is an error, and will be corrected. While I hope so, I don't think it's been removed from T-bird, and it's been there for a while.

reply to Mister M

reply to EdmundGerber
What amazes me is you think this sole feature is an indication of the direction of Mozilla's goals and directions. What amazes me even more is that this is such a turn off for you.