Jump to content

Upgrading Firefox


Havin_it
 Share

Recommended Posts

'ning

 

T'other week My Firefox/Win popped up an 'update' icon. Red, not the normal green. Turned out to be a version update (1.0.1) rather than the normal extension updates. It was gonna do an in-place upgrade, so I just let it.

 

...And, despite the amount of doom-saying in the community about doing this, it worked perfectly.

This is good.

 

However, I actually _never_ get any update checks in Firefox/Linux, is this a common problem?

Secondly, what do you consider a safe method of updating while preserving one's profile?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer waiting for an RPM (or deb in Debian) since that way your package manager knows what's installed...

 

Secondly, what do you consider a safe method of updating while preserving one's profile?

 

absolute safest method is

cp ~/.firefox ~/myfirefoxbeforeupgrade

 

and then install the new version...

if it all works fine... if not you have all your shortcuts etc. already to copy back!!

 

A nice trick for anything like this is to create a spare ccount called testing and always install user files into the test account first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, I wish I was such a 'good user' ... bringing too much Windows bad behaviour with me?

 

I'm never sure what files in the profile are 'safe' to just copy back in place. Surely some of them are version-specific? That's why I tend to just restore bookmarks.html, cookies.txt and prefs.js

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, I wish I was such a 'good user' ... bringing too much Windows bad behaviour with me?

 

I'm never sure what files in the profile are 'safe' to just copy back in place.  Surely some of them are version-specific? That's why I tend to just restore bookmarks.html, cookies.txt and prefs.js

LOL... make a 3rd copy...

cp .firefox upgraded_default_settings

then copy stuff in and test it... (course bookmarks.html is fine) but if your unsire try and and see, if its a non binary file check it in an editor...

 

This is how I learned...and most of the real guru's here who know loads more than me...

 

This is why I sometimes argue voricifiously for standard text config files in the correct place for that app.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately there won't be an update to the mozilla-firefox from MDK 10.1 and earlier. Firefox was in contrib prior to 10.2, not main, and contrib is not supported so does not get security updates. To get 1.0.1, you will need to install from the Mozilla site or get an unofficial RPM.

 

For information, the security issue is the widely-reported IDN spoofing problem. If you do not use non-English domain names you could simply disable IDN resolution and be immune to the problem; this can be done from the about:config Firefox configuration page.

 

From 10.2 onwards, Firefox is in main (in fact, it is the default MDK browser now) and will therefore get updates in the same way as any other MDK package; an updated RPM will be provided through MandrakeUpdate. Debian are apparently working to patch Firefox's automatic update notification so that it simply goes and downloads the updated Debian package; I've suggested to Fred Crozat (MDK firefox maintainer) that we look into doing the same in future, but nothing official on that yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately there won't be an update to the mozilla-firefox from MDK 10.1 and earlier. Firefox was in contrib prior to 10.2, not main, and contrib is not supported so does not get security updates. To get 1.0.1, you will need to install from the Mozilla site or get an unofficial RPM.

 

For information, the security issue is the widely-reported IDN spoofing problem. If you do not use non-English domain names you could simply disable IDN resolution and be immune to the problem; this can be done from the about:config Firefox configuration page.

 

From 10.2 onwards, Firefox is in main (in fact, it is the default MDK browser now) and will therefore get updates in the same way as any other MDK package; an updated RPM will be provided through MandrakeUpdate. Debian are apparently working to patch Firefox's automatic update notification so that it simply goes and downloads the updated Debian package; I've suggested to Fred Crozat (MDK firefox maintainer) that we look into doing the same in future, but nothing official on that yet.

 

I tend to use the download installer anyway - have never run into any deps problems with it as yet.

 

So is the auto-updater not even implemented for Linux?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it's implemented, but it's not going to work with the MDK package (or most distro's packages, hence the Debian workaround), as we change the installation slightly so it fits standard Linux paths (binaries in /usr/bin, libs in /usr/lib, and so forth). The auto-updater will only work if you installed Firefox from the official mozilla.org package, and put it all in its own directory which it can control. Apart from that, of course, MDK's packaged Firefox installs in /usr , which only root has access to...so Firefox running as a normal user (which is the only way you should run it) could obviously never update itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...