Fix Firefox Update Interval

If you are running Firefox, you may be annoyed at the frequent requests to update the browser. It takes a long time, during which you cannot use your computer, and it only takes a month until a new version is available and you have to do it again. There is no need for these frequent updates if your browser is functioning properly and you have no problems.

I found that modifying the parameters in about:config stops these incessant interruptions and allows you to browse in peace.

To implement,

  1. type about:config in the url window
  2. click on "Show All", or "I understand" to bypass the warning
  3. when Search Preference Name appears, type update
  4. adjust the parameters as follows:

app.update.BITS.enabled true app.update.auto.migrated true app.update.backgroundMaxErrors 10 app.update.badgeWaitTime 345600 app.update.channel release app.update.checkInstallTime true app.update.checkInstallTime.days 100000 app.update.download.attempts 0 app.update.download.promptMaxAttempts 0 app.update.elevate.attempts 0 app.update.elevation.promptMaxAttempts 0 app.update.interval 10000000 app.update.langpack.enabled true app.update.log false app.update.log.file false app.update.notifyDuringDownload false app.update.promptWaitTime 691200 app.update.service.enabled false app.update.staging.enabled false app.update.timerFirstInterval 10000000 app.update.timerMinimumDelay 1000000 browser.region.update.enabled false browser.search.update.interval 1000000

Once you have your browser tamed, you may be interested in the following extentions:

  1. AdBlocker for YouTube

- kills popup ads

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  1. Audio Equalizer

- allows you to set the frequency response for best results

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  1. I don't care about cookies

- stops incessant request to allow cookies

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  1. JavaScript Toggle On and Off

- allows you to turn javascript off so you can avoid requests to sign up

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Reply to
Steve Wilson
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Steve Wilson snipped-for-privacy@not.com wrote in news:XnsAD95580C92B36idtokenpost@144.76.35.252:

Total bullshit.

You must still be using a 9600 baud modem on a POTS connection.

On a single threaded POS machine too.

Mine happen and I do not stop using my machine at all... ever.

Zero effect, in fact.

And the "no need" remark is not very bright either. I guarantee that every one is a SECURITY update, thwarting hacking.

You spent way more time doing your adjustments than the action uses. And now you downplay the updates.

Damn, Steve... not very bright.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

søndag den 29. august 2021 kl. 14.39.26 UTC+2 skrev Steve Wilson:

? update is downloaded in the background FF, ask for a restart, it takes about 10 seconds and the session is restored with all open tabs etc.

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Fewer updates is good. Most updates turn the startup launcher process on, and I have to go into about:config and turn it off, and restart. That's a recurring pain. If the launcher is on, I can't drag/drop a link from the address bar.

Reply to
jlarkin

It takes a whole lot longer to download and install on my system. I'm running Win 7 on virtualbox under Ubuntu 10.04 and have two separate installations to maintain. This doubles the work.

I am firmly in the camp that if it is not needed, then don't do it. There are all kinds of things that could go wrong and kill the system. If it is working fine, then leave it alone.

Of course, I keep good backups on a separate SSD, so if anything happens I can always return to a recent backup. This happens from time to time. As long as I prevent updates, that is one less thing to worry about when things go screwy.

Reply to
Steve Wilson

Ah, I agree there. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Software people are crazy, always updating things with new versions that are just as immature as the things they replace, usually with new "features" that are really just new nuisances. And new bugs, always new bugs. On second thought, they certainly aren't crazy. They are exploiting us.

What irritates me are sites that proclaim my browser is obsolete, with links that pretend to expose the security holes, but that really just state that there are more recent versions. Liars!

The web was supposed to be universal, version and system-agnostic, compatible, reliable, persistent. Instead we have sites that exploit incompatible new gadgets to try and force you to 'upgrade' and sell your soul doing so. Grrr! Sir Tim is horrified, I'm convinced. I sure am.

Jeroen Belleman

Reply to
Jeroen Belleman

...and ALL saved passwords, etc DESTROYED.

Reply to
Robert Baer

total nonsense, FF restarts and everything is at it were

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen
[...]
+1. Very eloquent.

Of course, we have to allow for progress in technology.

Youtube used to go nuts when I used older Firefox versions. I was running XP at the time, and the latest version was 52 ESP. It continually hung on newer videos and this finally convinced me to move to Win7. This was very painful. I have some legacy programs that won't run on Win7 due to the change in the Documents and Settings folder, and the huge number of dll's in WINSXS. So I keep a version of Win XP running for the times it is needed.

Fortunately, virtualbox allows you to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, so I have Ubuntu, two versions of Win 7, and Win XP all running at the same time. I am constantly amazed when I go back to Win XP to see how fast it is. Blazingly instant response, while Win 7 is so sluggish that I have ordered different versions of my cpu to see if I can find a faster one. This was expensive, but ya do what ya gotta do.

I recall the old days when DOS was so terrible we longed for upgrades. DOS

3, 4, and 5 were horrible and full of bugs. DOS 6 was OK, but then came Windows. Win 95 and 98 were improvements, then came Win ME. There was another release that I forgot the name of, and finally Win XP. This was the finest version, but Microsfot made it impossible to run newer programs on it, which forced the move to Win 7. This will be my last move. Win 8, 10, and 11 are simply not on my horizon.

I am pleased with the config changes to Firefox. Every time I turned around there was a request to upgrade. That is over now. Of course, I can upgrade any time I want by loading the Help menu. It has an upgrade link, but I see no reason to upgrade at the moment.

It seems silly that Firefox has gone to a 4 week upgrade cycle. It seems unlikely they will ever be able to make any significant changes that would be worthwhile, and they will be just frittering away their energy and talent on miscellaneous stuff. They should go to a 6 month cycle where they can really accomplish something, or really shoot themself in the foot.

There is a move afoot to overhaul the web. I don't see them making changes what would obsolete the billions of browsers on the web, but you never know. In that case it would be useful to wait for a couple of revisions before upgrading to avoid the inevitable bugs, but now we can do that instead of having it forced on us.

Reply to
Steve Wilson

Lasse Langwadt Christensen snipped-for-privacy@fonz.dk wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

They probably keep OUR password database out in one of their clouds.

How do you think they can keep them across multiple devices?

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Steve Wilson snipped-for-privacy@not.com wrote in news:XnsAD95B0744E988idtokenpost@144.76.35.252:

FREE web browser authors are exploiting us?

They update to keep the exploiters out. D'Oh!

Spammers want to exploit us, but one only needs to be smart and ignore it. Find and buy your own product choices.

But I am reasonably certain that the web browser authors are not exploiting us. They didn't write the html language and they didn't write java, and they let the use turn off 'features'.

Really? You blame the web browsser?

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Steve Wilson snipped-for-privacy@not.com wrote in news:XnsAD95B0744E988idtokenpost@144.76.35.252:

Those are not "sites" those are clicks that will allow you to be hacked if you click/visit them. That is how they get in to 'install' ransomware on your machine. You click a button marked X and you get

1BigOne up your computer hiney hole. It says X, but you get Y.

Then they lock down your hard drive and all you get are instructions on how to pay. In bitcoin, which is non-refundable and non-tracable.

That is why bitcoin should be shut down.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Yeah, this is infuriating. I have to turn the launcher off as well, over and over, about every other week.

Reverting user preferences is one of the most disrespectful things a developer can do. It's the sort of thing you do when you want to lose

50 million users to the competition.

The Mozilla devs don't care. They know better than we do, dontchaknow... and when it comes to security, they're *sure* that everybody from DIRNSA to my grandmother has the same threat model. Eventually these rocket surgeons will remove the browser.launcherProcess.enabled key altogether, and that'll be when I, too, switch to whatever browser is next.

-- john, KE5FX

Reply to
John Miles, KE5FX

But it's made of software. We had no idea at the time that software which seemed to be "mostly working" was in fact so easy to break in a myriad of ways... almost all of them unavoidable now, and certainly at the time.

CH

Reply to
Clifford Heath

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I have tried every other browser available and they all suck. Big Time. Firefox is where it's at. Let's fix it.

Unfortunately I just got another update alert, Mon Aug 30, 2021,04:22:21 am

They are much less often than before, but there is one I apparently missed. I'll try to measure the time to the next one and see how many seconds it takes. That should help identify the variable that needs fixing.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Reply to
Steve Wilson

"John Miles, KE5FX" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

The only reason they would lose folks is if the other guy(s) had better security. Maybe Chrome, but that fight is up in the air.

No firefox update in over ten years has ever erased my user settings. I still have modified window frames with fractals. It never touches my theme choice.

It may reset setting about security if the update was a security update and you setup is one of the vulnerabilities addressed, but I would not expect logic from so many folks who just want to piss and moan like a group of dopey construction workers down at the sports bar.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Steve Wilson snipped-for-privacy@not.com wrote in news:XnsAD96337D0800Fidtokenpost@144.76.35.252:

I think they switched. From every update being a full download of the entire app code to incrimental updates which update only those things they changed. Because mine happen now, and I do not even any longer get the "new version" page it used to pop each time, and the DL indicator does not take long at all. So I thik they addressed the problem of you low bandwidth guys. And I think it updates in the BG now.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

The launcher has something to do with Windows security settings. I battled that for a while and gave up.

Reply to
jlarkin

They have changed something but the bgnd update does not work quite yet (windows 10). I get the update request, allow it, then if I don't restart the browser for a day, may be less, I get the same request again. Took a few days of getting the request every day until I noticed. Not a big issue of course. The really big issue I had with them was when they changed to a completely new version for android, which is still unusable (and has no about: confing ...). I maintain the latest of the former version on my phone, one of these days I'll check if I can somehow install both... (the old version suits my habits of checking the cameras at home etc., tried the new and it was very very clunky).

Reply to
Dimiter_Popoff

Excuse me, but there are ways to write bug-free programs, ways of proving them, in fact there are now languages built for that.

Even 15 years ago (roughly) it was easy to make a program that had no "memory leaks" and no "buffer overflow"; ways to make such funny-business impossible.

Reply to
Robert Baer

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