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Like Google's Chrome, Mozilla To Silently Update Firefox 4
CWmike writes "Taking a page from rival Google's playbook, Mozilla plans to introduce silent, behind-the-scenes security updating to Firefox 4. The feature, which has gotten little attention from Mozilla, is currently 'on track' for Firefox 4, slated to ship before the end of the year. Firefox 4's silent update will only be offered on Windows, Mozilla has said. Most updates will be downloaded and installed automatically without asking the user or requiring a confirmation. 'We'll only be using the major update dialog box for changes like [version] 4 to 4.5 or 5," said Alex Faaborg, a principal designer on Firefox, in the 'mozilla.dev.apps.firefox' forum. 'Unfortunately users will still see the updating progress bar on load, but this is an implementation issue as opposed to a [user interface] one; ideally the update could be applied in the background.' Unlike Google, Mozilla will let users change the default silent service to the more traditional mode, where the browser asks permission before downloading and installing any update."
to be honest, I'm not so worried about this - its only a browser, and I install all those security updates anyway. What I'm not so keen on is the "silent, in the background, don't bother the user" implementation. I'd like to know that it is doing it, pop a little UI element on the status bar that says "updating latest version now" and then gets on with it, and then puts a little version marker somewhere so I know its been done.
Be polite to your users, be open in your communication, inform us. (and a link to the things that were fixed if you click the version number would be a nice to have)
... silent updates suck.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
why would this be considered a bad idea?
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
I like that a lot of what makes Firefox different from Chrome is due to the "we'll let users decide how they want it" approach instead of just telling them how it's going to be done.
Mozilla is stealing our freedoms with communist security updates!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I get more complaints from family and friends about "slow computers" than anything else, and usually these are all about silent background updates in the end. It's damned near impossible to explain to someone that's not computer literate what and update is, how it's affecting their computer, why it's necessary that the update gets installed, etc. They don't even know what Firefox is ("You mean my Internet?") much less any of the other things. Even my wife struggles to comprehend why there's always an update running; she tends to think I'm lying or dismissing her concerns. Every single application running on her computer does silent background updates:
Windows
Office
AntiVirus/Firewall Software
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Reader
Sun JRE
Nero
Skype
etc.
Even tiny little apps from the vendor do this... Volume control, display control, trackpad control, blah, blah...
Another background process running automatic updates each and every icon in the tray and for each and every folder and application in the Start menu, as well as for browser plugins, third party configuration tools/extensions, drivers, etc.
At the very least they should try to display a notification somewhere on the screen saying "Updating XYZ, may slow your computer..." each time they do this, rather than silently saturating an internet connection (as 10 different updaters are in competition with one another), a CPU, and/or a hard drive's activity.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This is problematic on slow links where every byte is precious (dial-up)
This is problmeatic on expensive links where every byte costs money (satellite, cellular)
This is problematic in managed environments where the end user does not have write-permission to the filesystem containing the software
I hope it can be disabled.
At the risk of being /. assassinated, I have to say that I agree with this. Particularly because it is possible to disable such a feature.
Non-techie people don't get a thing about browsers, updating, security, etc. The medium-techie usually want to be all updated, so will update to even RCs and Betas if they find them out. Techie guys, us, do whatever they want, but I believe that they want to be in control and know what's going on -- thus, they'll disable such feature.
But especially for the non-techies, this is a way of getting free security upgrades. The upgrades will probably be carefully chosen so that there are no compatibility issues -- and if there are, non-techie to medium-techie users won't care that much.
All in all, it is good for people who don't care, and enables us who care to keep things the way we want it.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
I wonder how this will get around UAC, a substantially annoying feature of Windows Vista/7. Will they be installing firefox to the user's home directory? Will it be sand-boxed from the OS? I admit I haven't done much looking into the pre-release so I apologize for any ignorance I might be showing.
Nah, little Snitch will tell me. I really do hate that Google Chrome feature; just when I least expect it one of the Google background processes is for no apparent reason trying to connect to certain sites. Makes me wary, even if for the right reasons some software tries to sneak in any update without telling me. Even Apple gives me more freedom there.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
I have installed by the Administrator account and then Unpriv users can't do updates, it requires manual intervention.
So instead we'll get "couldn't silently update" dialog boxes !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Maybe a user doesn't like the new 4.0 look and wants to stay at 3.5? Give the user a box and ask. Do not change this behavior!
Congratulations for not even reading the summary: They will only do silent updates for
minor versions, i.e. security and stability updates.
The question will be kept for major updates, like 3.x to 4.
I'd love to be able to actually deploy and maintain Firefox in the large enterprise that I work in. Users want it. Unfortunately, users don't have admin rights, and Mozilla makes applying updates and configuring the browser from a central location difficult and has a history of not thinking about and actively shooting down any proposals which would potentially benefit system administrators trying to support Firefox.
I don't get why they don't get it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
on Windows, Mozilla has said.
Nothing to see here, move along..
How stupid! Show the user the dialog box, and put a checkmark on it which says (approx) "Don't notify me of these updates anymore, just do them."
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
The protocol could also require signed updates
Signed with a certificate issued by whom, purchased with what money? A company like Mozilla Corp could afford it, just as it can afford the Authenticode certificate to digitally sign Firefox Setup, but individual hobbyist developers of freeware and free software likely can't spare 200 U.S. dollars per year plus whatever their state charges to form a business entity.
Dude, you can turn off silent updates. I know nobody reads the article, but at least read the summary before frothing at the mouth about a non-problem.
They have essentially reached the point of time when there was no competition (technologically, *) left, and interpreted the achieved stability as a stagnation. And that freaked them out and they set out to destroy themselves by screwing up what was working perfectly before.
Kidding. FireFox's focus was always a grandma type of user. The moment when they say goodbye to their tech savvy audience was ought to come and I believe it is upon us. It started in 2.x with some enhancements one couldn't turn off (and had to install couple of add-ons to disable stuff), further expanded in 3.x and I think might peak in 4.x.
I'm already searching for a FireFox' replacement on Windows... IE is too dumb and arrogant (+ poor extensions + idiotic security). Chrome's too primitive (+ constant quirks due to forced updates). Opera is way too feature overloaded and cluttered.
(*) Except for the further development of HTML itself.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
"And I hope it can be disabled"
Read the summary.
I don't normally run as administrator on my computers. I have installed Firefox as an admin., though, and I must use that account for updates. This is slightly annoying with Firefox because I get update nag notifications under my user account which can't be used to perform the updates. I don't always want to go through the hassle of shutting down my current session and switching accounts for the latest update. I hope this new feature can be turned off to avoid additional problems with the update process.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Adobe has created a fix for this...just install flash...
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Who exactly is running their web browser with the privileges required to install an update?
Virtually everyone.
People ignore update dialogs. Why do you think they wouldn't ignore that, too?
Because illiteracy isn't just for ACs, it extends to people with mod points too.
Silent updates is the reason why I received a 30 euro phone bill for a few minutes.
I was on holiday, and let a friend use my laptop and telephone to send an important email (it was party invitation, nothing more important than that). And of course... I forgot to displace all things that would silently try to update whatever they could when a network connection was found. Withing a short time, a few megabyte was downloaded. And mobile data from a foreign country is more expensive than HP ink.
So please mozilla, provide a nice toggle though the preferences screen to change this, an not through a about:config option.
I realize this may seem like sacrilege on /. but IE8 plus an extension called IE7Pro (which despite its name works great on 8) gives Firefox a good run for its money. It's actually more secure in some important ways (sandboxing, ASLR), includes ad-blocking out of the box (set the registry key to enable InPrivate Filtering on every startup) and Flash filtering (under the Flash add-on options, delete the Use on sites: *.* then you can manually add sites when they request it) and while its JS engine is weak compared to Firefox, it works fine on 99.9 percent of the sites I've seen (Acid3 being pretty much the other 0.1%). Plus, call me weird but I actually find its Accelerators feature handy, and feel its tabbed browsing is a lot better than Firefox's.
IE7Pro ( http://ie7pro.com/ ) gives you more ad-block and flash-block options, spell checking, a download manager, user agent switching, customizable mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts, fast proxy switching, pre-fetching options, GreaseMonkey-style user scripts, and a lot more.
Firefox still wins on JS and HTML5, but I find the advantages worth it.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...