How to Prevent Firefox Quantum from Showing Update Pop-Up

[mjmikulcik]

So I've been using Slacko 6.3.2 and when I got it, I got the firefox from the puppy package manager. At that time it was ff 38.8.0, which by the time I was using it was already outdated (mind you it was the extended support release, and from 2016 at that, which doesn't feel that long ago). But eventually I got tired of being told it wasn't secure. I'm pretty sure my gmail refused to connect at some point, and maybe they had good reasons for telling me it was insecure, maybe the didn't. You got to wonder though what they're fixing all the time (in security that is), because you'd think they'd eventually make something that works. Maybe they just say they have security fixes just to get you to download it (although it is open source so you should be able to look it up) but it makes me question it when I'm reading the wikipedia (the source of all knowledge) and they say time after time they have "regular security updates". But I digress because this post isn't about security, but about the updates.

I got firefox quantum and it works great but it has this nasty habit of trying to update every few days. And this wouldn't be a problem except on puppy. Because on puppy, the way I use it, you don't want to have to re-save your savefile every couple days. You want to get it all set up and just have it work. It does everything in ram and you turn it off and next time you boot it up just the same. It makes a lot of sense. But this firefox kept telling me that my browser was out of date. And they don't let you disable that option anymore. It always checks for updates (at least in version 63) and gives you a pesky little pop up.

But I think I've gotten rid of it on my puppy, which makes me happy so I thought I'd share. You go to the directory that holds firefox and in /defaults/pref/channel-prefs.js replace whatever channel you're on with "default"

like this

Code: Select all

pref("app.update.channel", "default");

And once it boots up again, it thinks it's up to date.

Disclaimer: I don't know how long it will work. Maybe there are better ways. I just found on http://kb.mozillazine.org/App.update.channel that it didn't update on that channel.

[pp4mnklinux]

FF option


about:preferences#general

[foxpup]

Another solution:
Find the lib "updater" for your firefox in the system files with pFind? Here for example:

Code: Select all

/usr/lib/firefox-52.7.3/updater

Go there and rename "updater" to "updater.BAK".