Nope, it only happens when something outside changed Firefox's files (in this case when Ubuntu swapped files because dpkg updated Firefox). This never happens* in Windows and macOS (it might nag, but you can definitely dismiss it). It seems that johnchristopher has a suggestion to disable auto-updates on a specific application in Debian and Ubuntu (haven't tested it though): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33202052
* At least using their official installers. I'm specifically excluding using Chocolatey/brew/other loose-file update mechanism or your bonkers enterprise solution insists on using loose files and not rely on *.msi/*.app/*.pkg.
This also doesn't occur on NixOS because the new version is in a different direcotry and the old version is kept until it is garbage collected.
Also with flatpak; you are using the old version until you close it. Then it will be garbage collected. On the next launch, you will be running a new version from different root.
It was snap that updated firefox regardless of whether you wanted it or not.
Happens with multiple Firefox instances too, `firefox -P -no-remote` (I think in recent versions the -no-remote is redundant), even on Windows with official installers. In that case you don't even get the error message; new tabs just remain blank. There might be a delay between process A's update and symptoms appearing in process B; not sure.
Or maybe new features are still coming out in the W3C specs and need to be implemented. Did you know CSS now has a parent selector, or that JS will be getting functional piping soon?
The problem is the recent trend that everything has to be a web application. So browsers aren't just to access information anymore, but literally to do everything else too. I personally don't agree with the web application trend, but this is the reason why a browser is so much more complex compared to an MP3 decoder: the decoder has to do a single thing, the browsers have to do more and more things.
Since lots of money is today transfered directly (banking site) or indirectly (purchase) via a browser, I would say yes.
(even though in reality most updates are introducing new web features and not strengthening security).
Does it have to? I don’t know. But it is. It’s an operating system where 3rd parties execute random code on, and you hope it stays sandboxed. Those websites? Thanks to ads, they don’t update once in a while, but usually once every few seconds.
All software will have bugs. I want my fixes fast and often to an environment where I run untrusted code from that many places.
Will not work with snap though.
You can't really have usable vertical tabs in Chromium via plugins either, unless you're content with wasting a lot of horizontal space for an ugly sidebar and vertical space for uselessly duplicated tab bar.
Firefox is the only actual choice I'm aware about.
Why? Are you considering forking Firefox?
I don’t see how just using it does. So if you aren’t contributing to it you may as well use the browser with the best feature set for your use case.
lower market share =>
nobody testing against the free browser or fixing site breakage =>
quirks (bugs, underdefined specifications, nonstandard features) of other browsers becoming required for a functional Web =>
free browser is no longer a browser of the actual Web.I don’t see how that relates to market share, since regular users won’t do that.
I regularly have 2-4 Firefox windows with dozens of tabs in each and a "You need to restart" button press takes like 4-5 seconds max to close all windows and reload them all with all of my tabs as they were. The most I have to do is stick each instance on the right workspace.
Granted each tab will reload when opening it but if I'm updating my OS packages I'm probably not exactly "in the zone".
The first time it happened, I would get rid of whatever software was involved in causing it and never use it again, except for testing purposes.
I completely agree with you about everything else too. The Web is mature enough that I can use a well-tested website with a 20-year-old browser.
There is no technical reason to not have a minimum-viable web browser with a smaller attack surface that doesn't need upgrades for months or even years.
And, in fact, such browsers exist, and I can browse most of the Web that I need with them. I just have to ignore the shitty mainstream, which I am more than happy to do.
qutebrowser
luakit
If you're into more traditional, then there are these Firefox-based forks:
LibreWolf
Waterfox
Waterfox Classic
PaleMoon
I'm also a fan of Camino on Mac, but that's mostly HTTP-only at this point.
Links (GUI)
Links (console)
Lynx (console)
w3m (console, especially if you like vim bindings)
And each update logs me out of my password manager
Worse, now this is happening to Thunderbird. Wasn't an issue until about a month ago. Now I need to re-install Thunderbird every few weeks because they've pushed an update.
When from my point of view, as a user, I haven't seen a new feature which I truly wanted in over 5 years, maybe more like 10.
It's a shame, really.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33201971 for a bit more context.
I for one don't really mind the Autoupdate. I can't stand it that it forces me to restart while I am in some workflow. I'd be fine with "you should update, click here, when ready" which I can click five minutes later when done with the task.
https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates
https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Nag...