How do I disable Firefox background updates in a Ubuntu-based linux distro
Does Firefox run its own updating service outside of the system updates? I like to be in control of when my computer updates, so I have turned off all automatic updates, and about once per week, I just run 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade' and it takes care of it. I usually do that either first thing in the morning, or when I have a few minutes before going home, so that updates don't interrupt my workflow during the day.
Firefox seems to update itself outside of my package management software. It is incredibly frustrating to open a new tab or window and get that annoying freaking page that says it applied an update in the background and just needs to restart. Not only does it interrupt what I'm doing (especially if I'm listening to something in another tab and have to close it and find it again), but it NEVER restarts automatically, and when I restart it manually, it does a piss poor job of resuming where I was.
I've gone to about:config and changed app.update.auto to false, but that doesn't seem to change anything.
Please help, if you can. I don't want to go to a chromium-based browser!
All Replies (7)
AFAIK using Windows version it will update even if you turn off update or not install "Service Maintenance".
How do you completely turn off update checks in Firefox v64? You can use a policies.json file to disable updates for all users. https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md
larsenzr said
Does Firefox run its own updating service outside of the system updates? Firefox seems to update itself outside of my package management software.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0
You appear to be using a third-party Ubuntu packaged build of Firefox and not an official Firefox build for Linux from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all
Firefox updates will be in package manager as Mozilla does not provide updates to third-party builds they did not well build.
WestEnd said
AFAIK using Windows version it will update even if you turn off update or not install "Service Maintenance".
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenance-service
The "Mozilla Maintenance Service" is only with Windows version and not with Mac OSX and Linux versions of Firefox.
Hi larsenzr, have you tried the "ask me before installing" setting on the Preferences page? This is how it looks that setting looks on Windows:
To set that, try this:
- Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
- Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
- Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
- Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it
In the search box at the top of the page, type updat and Firefox should filter to the relevant section where you can change your setting.
If you use a custom distribution of Firefox, it's possible that some settings are locked out, but I would be surprised if this one can't be changed.
The third-party builds of Firefox like the package builds of Firefox provided by Linux distros do not get the .mar file updates like the official builds from www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ do.
Like written above, if you use the Linux version from the Ubuntu repositories then you can't control updates from within Firefox (this is handled via the OS software support). You would need to switch to the Firefox version from the Mozilla server if you want to control updates yourself.