What is the Mozilla Maintenance Service?

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  • Revision id: 247120
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  • Creator: Denys
  • Comment: Added templates for closing opt/pref & reworked the Disabling the MMS section. Some minor grammatical & text changes.
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Firefox and Thunderbird install an optional service called the Mozilla Maintenance Service which allows application updates to occur in the background, without requiring you to click Yes in the Windows User Account Control (UAC) dialog.

Note: The article only applies to Windows.
No UAC

How does the Mozilla Maintenance Service work?

When Firefox or Thunderbird downloads an application update, the Mozilla Maintenance Service gets permission from Windows to allow the update to be applied, without requiring you to click Yes in the Windows User Account Control (UAC) dialog. Until that time, the service doesn't run so it doesn't use any computer resources and, once the update process begins, the service quits. See this Mozilla Wiki page for more technical details.

Note: Firefox also has a feature you can enable that will automatically install updates, even when Firefox is not running. See this article for details.

Disabling the Mozilla Maintenance Service

If you'd like to be prompted to authorize updates, you can disable the Mozilla Maintenance Service as follows:

Firefox

  1. In the Menu bar at the top of the screen, click Firefox and then select Preferences or Settings, depending on your macOS version.Click the menu button Fx89menuButton and select Settings.
  2. In the General panel scroll down to the Firefox Updates section.
    • You can also search for updates in the search box.
  3. Uncheck the box next to Use a background service to install updates.
  4. Close the Settings page. Any changes you've made will automatically be saved.

Thunderbird

  1. In the menu bar, click the Thunderbird menu and select Settings.Click the menu button Fx89menuButton and choose Settings.
  2. In the General panel scroll down to the Updates section.
  3. Uncheck the box next to Use a background service to install updates.
  4. Click OK to close the Options window.Click Close to close the Preferences window.Close the Preferences window.

Uninstalling the Mozilla Maintenance Service

You can uninstall the Mozilla Maintenance Service from your computer if you wish.