The Extended Support Release of Firefox 115 is the only supported version for Windows 7. You appear to be about a year behind in security updates, so of course updating is recommended. See: Update Firefox to the latest release.

As for old versions, they are all still available (see Install an older version of Firefox), but I don't understand your description of the features you want to avoid.

For #1, if your Firefox is up-to-date, you will see far fewer update notices. The notices appear when you have switched from automatically installing updates to asking you whether you want to download them. I assume you prefer to have control.

For #2, are you referring to the Firefox View feature? (Firefox View - Access pages from open tabs, recently closed tabs, tabs from other devices and browsing history) You should be able to remove the button using the right-click context menu. No?

For #3, where is that popup?

For #4, where is that popup?

Topics:

    (1) unrequested favors & features
    (2) popups
    (3) download a new version
    (4) download an old version
    (5) tab pickup
    (6) popups to show article titles
    (7) popups to show current URLs

(1) unrequested favors & features

Broadly, as I'm busy doing my work (for my startup), using the well known features and tools, then NO ONE in this universe has ANY idea of what unrequested favors/features done for me I will like.

Immediately there is violation of the KISS Principle -- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Instead, anything unrequested or not standard is frustrating, irritating, infuriating and an INTERRUPTION that breaks my work 'momentum' kicks me out of 'the zone', wastes my time and energy and hurts, sabotages, my WORK and my STARTUP.

So far I have yet to take an ax and with rage destroy everything in sight.

So far the neighbors have yet to complain about my loud screaming in frustration.

Generally unimportant missing features don't have bugs, don't need updates, and don't cause trouble.

I urge anyone writing software never but never ever implement and execute unrequested features or favors.

(2) popups

As an important special case of (1), a popup covers the content I'm trying to read/use, distracts my vision/focus, is an INTERRUPTION. Not before a sudden WWIII with thousands of nuclear warheads on rockets in the air between continents has any popup been better to have than the content it covers. NEVER.

(3) download a new version

Important software, e.g., Windows, Firefox, Excel, Knuth's TeX, VLC, Kedit, Rexx, and more, has all been rock solid for years, maybe decades. E.g., Windows 7 Professional (I'm using for this post) supposedly has at its core Windows Server 2008, and we can be sure that back in 2008 big companies with bet-the-business computing needs had no much better alternative. And a few years ago, Microsoft wanted to do an update of my Windows 7 Professional, which I permitted, and which ran for hours -- I can believe that (i) those updates were very worthwhile and (ii) more updates (maybe except for the Windows Defender data) are not important or even worthwhile.

In simple terms, new versions have CHANGES, new features, bugs. So generally, no, No, NO I do NOT want an 'update' -- not a chance.

I got that software because there was good evidence that it was solid, certainly not a security problem.

For security? Computing, IBM, Microsoft, NSA, NIST, Mitre, etc. have been working hard on security back to, say, the IBM 360/67 with virtual machine, that could run operating systems with privileged code, and did 7 levels 'deep'.

Now all of a sudden this software, supposedly well programmed, that's had millions of users for years to expose bugs, I've been trusting for years has serious bugs, security holes? Naw -- I don't believe it.

The CVE cases I've seen look really tricky. Some of the cases involve buffer overflows -- you mean that some programmers of important software still have problems with allocating memory? Then there is "SQL injection" -- NOT in my SQL code, not a chance. There is email phishing -- can work on naive email users.

(4) download an old version

Since I don't want a recent version of Firefox, and no way want to download and use the most recent version, I want an older version. My question was how to get an older, thoroughly tested version. I took some hours clicking at Mozilla and Google, but it appears that I found some good answers:

There is page

    Install an older version of Firefox

at

    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-firefox

that suggests installing

    Firefox 114.0.2 64-bit (US English)

and doing so via link

    Firefox 114.0.2 64-bit (US English)

to

    https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/114.0.2/win64/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%20114.0.2.exe

Also on page

    Install an older version of Firefox

    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-firefox

is link

    Directory of other versions and
    languages

    https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

that apparently offers to download versions of Firefox back to

    0.10.1

So, I just took this opportunity and downloaded several versions 115, 114, 102.

(5) tab pickup

I've used Firefox to create Windows and not "tabs" which are one step of indirection to the relevant window.

Also commonly I have 12+ windows open at once, maybe half of them from Firefox. So I have windows A and B, have A at the top of the Z order, look at window B, return to window A, and suddenly see some notification that there is "tab pickup" with no sight of the window A I had and wanted again. So working quickly I concluded that there was some mistake, that my content in window A was lost, closed window A and lost the content. So tab pickup just hurt my work.

So, I HATE "tab pickup".

If you want to have 'tab pickup', then quit hurting users with it, quit forcing it onto users who do not want it, document it, and make it OPTIONAL.

(6) popups to show article titles

So I'm browsing and suddenly get a popup of the title of the article on the page, that popup covering part of the article. BUMMER.

Uh, did I mention, QUIT covering up the desired content.

(7) popups to show current URLs

So I'm browsing, move my mouse and accidentally roll over the URL of the page, and BOOM there is a popup with the URL. Too often the popup URL is ~10 lines long and, thus, covers a significant amount of the content I was reading. So, the popup covered over the desired content I was reading with the junk content.

Uh, did I mention, QUIT covering up the desired content.

(7) popups to show current URLs So I'm browsing, move my mouse and accidentally roll over the URL of the page, and BOOM there is a popup with the URL. Too often the popup URL is ~10 lines long and, thus, covers a significant amount of the content I was reading. So, the popup covered over the desired content I was reading with the junk content.

Did you try to turn off Enable link previews in Settings?

In Settings, did not see " Enable link previews". The Firefox version is 115.14.0, and to get rid of that URL popup want an older version. While I wasted some hours clicking, as in my post, finally I saw how to download ANY version of Firefox back to 0.10.1.

In simple terms, new versions have CHANGES, new features, bugs. So generally, no, No, NO I do NOT want an 'update' -- not a chance.

You are running the Extended Support Release, which only gets security patches during its supported lifetime of approximate 12 months. That period has been extended for Windows 7 users on Firefox 115. You are very unlikely to receive new features by catching up on 12 months of security patches. More info on the release you are running: Switch to Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) for personal use

Install an older version of Firefox ... suggests installing Firefox 114.0.2 64-bit (US English)

That is not a suggestion, it is just a link. You are suggested to only use supported versions that continue to receive security patches.

I've used Firefox to create Windows and not "tabs" which are one step of indirection to the relevant window.

Maybe you are a candidate for my first extension, which peels any new tabs off to their own window? https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/i-hate-tabs-sdi-for-firefox/

So I have windows A and B, have A at the top of the Z order, look at window B, return to window A, and suddenly see some notification that there is "tab pickup" with no sight of the window A I had and wanted again. So working quickly I concluded that there was some mistake, that my content in window A was lost, closed window A and lost the content. So tab pickup just hurt my work.

I don't know what that was, unless you triggered a message about Firefox View (see my previous reply). Have you ever seen it again? Can you capture a screenshot of it?

As you may know, you can use Ctrl+Shift+N to reopen the last closed window, or go to the History menu, either:

• "3-bar" menu button > History > Recently Closed Windows
• (menu bar or Alt+S) History > Recently Closed Windows

So I'm browsing and suddenly get a popup of the title of the article on the page, that popup covering part of the article. BUMMER.

I assume you mean an overlay in the page rather than a separate popup window. Where is the mouse when that happens? When you hover an element in a page that has a title attribute, Firefox usually display a small tooltip showing the text in the title (example screenshot attached):

However, some pages offer rich previews with styled text and even images. I don't think Firefox has a setting to block overlays, but you could look into add-ons for that. Or whether they are being generated by one of your existing add-ons.

So I'm browsing, move my mouse and accidentally roll over the URL of the page, and BOOM there is a popup with the URL. Too often the popup URL is ~10 lines long and, thus, covers a significant amount of the content I was reading. So, the popup covered over the desired content I was reading with the junk content.

Do you mean you hovered the mouse pointer over a link in the page? Firefox typically shows the URL in the lower left or lower right corner. However, regardless of the URL length, these are only one line tall. Is yours in that position, or some other kind of tooltip?

The Firefox 115 ESR just got a third updates extension as the last planned update will be Fx 115.33.0esr in February 2026 when the Fx 115.15.0esr was originally going to be the last. The updates are only for security and stability fixes and no new features.

I finally I saw how to download ANY version of Firefox back to 0.10.1.

Actually the oldest Firefox release in the Firefox folder is 0.8 as the 0.10 was a weird thing Mozilla did as it was basically a preview of the 1.0 Release. https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-us/firefox/releases/0.10

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

The web browser we know as Firefox started as Phoenix from 0.1 to 0.5 then it was changed to Firebird due to Phoenix Bios from 0.6 to 0.7 and then changed to Firefox as of 0.8 due to Firebird SQL having the Firebird name.