Oh, the stupidity of Firefox
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For a long time I have been using the ESR versions of Firefox. But, because the Firefox people are stupid, if I let Firefox update itself, it doesn't update to the latest ESR (currently 115.something) it updates to the latest general release (currently 120.something).
I found the trick to prevent Firefox from automatically updating -- Create a folder called "distribution" in the directory where Firefox is installed and drop a file called "policies.json" into that folder, and no more automatic updates.
So, every now and then I check the Mozilla website for a new ESR version of Firefox and when there is one, I download it and install it.
And the installer deletes the "distribution" folder.
I started looking around for a way to prevent this from happening and discovered two things.
(A) There is a command-line switch you can use to tell the Firefox installer to not delete the distribution folder. This command-line switch doesn't work, the Firefox people know that it doesn't work and (because they are stupid) don't care.
(2) According to the Firefox people, the installer deleting the distribution folder is deliberate and by design. You aren't supposed to update Firefox by installing a new version, you are supposed to use Firefox's built-in update mechanism.
And that would be fine except ....... see the very first paragraph of this post.
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@Gern_Blaanston What does Eric S. Raymond have to do with any of this?
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@Gern_Blaanston said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
currently 120.something
You're behind. It's 121.0.1.
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@dcon said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
@Gern_Blaanston said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
currently 120.something
You're behind. It's 121.0.1.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
@Gern_Blaanston What does Eric S. Raymond have to do with any of this?
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@dcon said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
@Gern_Blaanston said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
currently 120.something
You're behind. It's 121.0.1.
Yeah, sorry about that. I had to go out for a couple of hours.
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@Gern_Blaanston There's a registry key to disable the nagging completely. I'll forward it when I get home.
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@Gern_Blaanston Serious question. If you're going to use ambiguous acronyms, you need to explain them, because that's the only ESR I know of, so I have no idea what you're talking about here.
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@Mason_Wheeler Extended Support Release.
It's basically the Firefox LTS version
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@loopback0 I figured it out from the context, but I had to think about it a bit.
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Dogfood linux keeps me on firefox ESR. For most packages it would even keep me on the same ESR for the 10 year lifetime of the redhat release it's compatible with, but I don't think they're that masochistic on the firefox front.
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@Mason_Wheeler okay Blakey.
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[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
"DisableAppUpdate"=dword:00000001
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@Zenith said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
"DisableAppUpdate"=dword:00000001
It works. Thank you.
However, using a registry key really feels like
Since this is only applicable to Firefox and nothing else there should be a setting in Firefox about:config, not the Windows registry. (Don't use a global solution for a local problem).
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@PleegWat said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
Dogfood linux keeps me on firefox ESR. For most packages it would even keep me on the same ESR for the 10 year lifetime of the redhat release it's compatible with, but I don't think they're that masochistic on the firefox front.
Checked: I'm on 115.6.0esr.
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@Gern_Blaanston said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
Since this is only applicable to Firefox and nothing else there should be a setting in Firefox about:config, not the Windows registry. (Don't use a global solution for a local problem).
It's not global / local in the sense you're using these words.
It's under the "Mozilla/Firefox" section of the registry, so it's appropriately "local" to the software. But it's in HKLM (as it should be), not in HKCU or about:config, as it's a per-machine and not a per-user setting. Can't have user A set it to not update and then have user B set it to update. That doesn't make sense.
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@topspin also it's in the Registry because it's intended to be set via Group Policy.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Oh, the stupidity of Firefox:
@Gern_Blaanston Serious question. If you're going to use ambiguous acronyms, you need to explain them, because that's the only ESR I know of, so I have no idea what you're talking about here.
This is perhaps the funniest thing you've ever posted after getting upset that people don't know obscure shit you post about.
