Comment by Stormbringer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Stormbringer | Hacker News Reader

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Much respect to Firefox for being the torch bearer in the darkness and all that, but their secret auto-updates in the background are why I don't use them.

I use a Mac not because I'm some techno-illiterate neo-lithic throwback, but because I'm a raging control freak. On the Mac I feel like I'm in control. Programs that go and do random weird stuff behind the scenes break that fragile illusion. :D

The worst was when Firefox's stealthy self-updating broke itself. I don't remember which version that was (sometime in 2008? 2009?) and it might have been on a work machine (Windows? Vista?) but there was basically no going back (couldn't use previous versions because of stealth updates...), and no going forward (wasn't gonna sit around waiting for them to patch it).

All a little off topic, but...

  menu Preferences -> Advanced -> Update

  seek to "When updates to Firefox are found"

  check "Ask me what I want to do"

Now you have your control again.

Continuing off-topic -- I hate programs that think updating is more important than whatever I had in mind when I launched the program. I prefer programs that update/download in the background while I get stuff done then let me update at my leisure when they've finished downloading.

I was just thinking the same thing - why doesa Firefox insisted on installing updates just when I open it to use it (which really is exactly when I don't want it to be doing it). Why not do the updates when I close it down?

The potential for data/program corruption is much higher when it is closing down (think of what happens when the computer shuts down, or when the program is closed immediately followed by a shutdown. )

Also, unless my system crashes I tend not to close Firefox.

For programs that are permanently online, it is a good idea to have updating as a high preference. At least when your operating system is not doing the updating off all installed software automatically.

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