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Comment by dpcan | Hacker News Reader

I JUST downloaded FF4 and now I see 5 is coming out.

Version-less updates of browsers makes sense, and they should be seamlessly, silently, updated in the back-ground. This is getting crazy.

I install Firefox for friends and family who I want off IE, and this actually embarrasses me a little. If I have to keep telling them to update, they will quit - or end up using REALLY OLD versions of Firefox and we'll have an IE6 situation all over again soon but with Firefox.

I'm starting to install Chrome now. At least I can say that their browser will always update, and they have nothing to worry about.

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Firefox has always done a good job of handling updates. It is not in the background, but it is painless and automatic once you agree to upgrade. It will never be anything like IE6 - how many people do you see using Firefox 2? or even 3.0?

The upgrade to 5 isn't much different than going from 3.8 to 3.16. Mainly, they've changed their numbering scheme, so there's no reason to make a big deal about it.

Firefox 5 is not coming out. It's a beta. You shouldn't bother friends and family with it.

Actually, my Firefox it's advicing me to update. And I'm not on the nightly, developer or beta channel.

Strange, mine (4.0.1) doesn't. There's something broken either in the update routine or in your Firefox. The beta is not supposed to be recommended to users of a release version.

Yeah, I'm also very confused. While I think it's a good idea to be pushing relases more often, this is way too often.

Here's the about Firefox dialog http://i.imgur.com/cDbN1.png and the update request http://i.imgur.com/4SYRI.png

Are you sure you're not on the beta channel? Coming from Firefox 4, that channel stuff was under the hood. If you used Firefox 4 beta, then you're probably on the beta channel (you can check in about:config looking at app.update.channel)

if Firefox 17 came out 3 months ago and we are currently on Firefox 20, I don't think that's any less secure than running 3.6.5 when 3.6.7 came out...

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