Can't disable update notification (linux uses package manager)
I often have green arrow on firefox hamburger menu, with "download fresh copy of firefox" as first option. And every time I launch FF I get notification to update.
But this is nonsense in linux - I can't update that way and, what is more important, I can update only when new version drops in my distro repos by maintainers. Obviously, there must be the way to disable at least notifications (which are annoying cause of nonsense) - in most linux distributions FF is updated by pkg managers.
I did not find solution in google - looks like it was earlier but now it isn't working anymore. Any help?
All Replies (5)
You appear to be using a build of Firefox 64.0 on the Beta channel.
There can be say nine to fourteen plus builds of a version on Beta channel.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:64.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/64.0
This useragent does not appear to be that of a third-party package build but that of a tarball build from https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/channel/desktop/ ?
The official builds get updates from Mozilla and not as updates in the package manager.
Use the Release as unless there is a update warranted for security and or stability fixes it does not get minor updates normally.
Yes I'm using beta, and official mozilla's tarballs with beta versions of FF are supposed to be used in linux. But my questions remains - what's the point to show notification, while regular user doesn't have access to folders where you should place tarball contents? Am I supposed to grant FF permissions to rewrite it's own files any time it wants? Looks like a big security flaw.
In Windows FF doesn't have such access, you grant it manually on demand with UAC request. In linux there is no UAC.
I installed FF Beta as package, so I can update it with linux system tools. Update notification and menu entry are supposed for Windows system tools like UAC and should be disabled in linux, as they don't work anyway or work with major security flaw. That's my point.
So, how can I disable them?
Installing the beta via the mozilla.org tarball, firstly bypasses the default distro upstream update period, as it's upstream is mozilla and as @James indicated that can have upwards of 15 or more point releases per cycle.
Sadly the long and short is that you either need to learn to just ignore the nightly notifications in firefox and potentially also distro notifyd daemon, OR revert back to the stable release. There is sadly for you no way to prevent the 'green arrow' for beta or nightly.
To your question on the tarbal write access, the default location for firefox to download said update tarballs is ~/Downloads OR whereever you have modified your DownloadsDir to be ( or potentially 'Always ask where to download files'
An alternative is to install Firefox in a location in your home directory to allow Firefox to update normally and disable automatic updates.
- app.update.auto
- app.update.doorhanger
jnarical said
Yes I'm using beta, and official mozilla's tarballs with beta versions of FF are supposed to be used in linux. But my questions remains - what's the point to show notification, while regular user doesn't have access to folders where you should place tarball contents? Am I supposed to grant FF permissions to rewrite it's own files any time it wants? Looks like a big security flaw. I installed FF Beta as package, so I can update it with linux system tools.
The Firefox folder needs read/write permissions for the user to do updates ever since the internal updates (by .mar file) has existed back in Fx 1.5 days some thirteen years ago.
A easy way for the user to have permissions to update the official builds is to have Firefox in a folder in say Home.
Package (rpm, deb, snap for example) Fx builds are separate from the tarball builds, however it can use the same Profile unless you select otherwise in ProfileManager or specific Profile shortcut.
Beta builds of Fx is not required to be used instead of Release on Linux. The Beta (developers edition) and Nightly channel builds are for QA and Testers in mind.