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Hot on the heels of Chrome, Firefox 4 will support 'silent' in-the-background updating
According to Computerworld (they don't cite a source, however), Firefox 4.0 will feature the same 'silent' updating as Google Chrome. Minor updates, say from Firefox 4.0 to 4.0.1, will be carried out in the background after the user opens the browser. Major revisions to 4.5 or 5.0 will still prompt the user before being installed.This could be reactionary -- a recent report [PDF] found that a massive 97% of Chrome installations are up-to-date, compared to Firefox's mediocre 85% and Safari's meager 53% -- or, more likely, this is just a move to keep Firefox as secure and easy-to-use as possible. Personally I hate those 'do you want to update now?' boxes. I'm always in the middle of something and loathe to close all my tabs.
Firefox isn't merely copying Chrome, however. In true, fluffy-purple-dinosaur Mozilla fashion, the behind-the-scenes auto-updater will be configurable. For those that simply want to browse, you can disable any and all update notifications -- your browser will always be kept up-to-date. Alternatively, if you're a power-user, you can simply turn the auto-updater off. Neat!
Comments
12
Subscribe to commentsRichardAug 9th 2010 8:20AM
It might be silent on XP but unless they've worked out how to circumvent UAC then it will alert users that their browser is being updated.
The problem you have then are those users who have been trained to always say "deny" to UAC prompts!
ChrisSskAug 9th 2010 8:50AM
UAC in Win 7 never prompts me when my Chrome dev built updates, I need to give permission to the minefield nightly to update though
jkroederAug 9th 2010 8:58AM
@Chris
Chrome doesn't bring up UAC because it installs itself into user space (i.e C:\Users\xxx]Appdata) whereas Firefox installs into C:\Program Files.
NickAug 9th 2010 11:47AM
That depends on the implementation. Chrome is updating using it's own executable file.
Mozilla typically uses a seperate downloaded update.exe file, which is basically an auto-extractor containing the update and it's installer..
The Chrome implementation is swift, safe and does not disturb the user. I believe it also runs in a seperate thread like other file transfers.
master811Aug 9th 2010 12:48PM
The problem with Google Chrome is every time you update it, it creates a new program folder in your user area. Each one eats up 100MB of space or so as it keeps all the old installers and folders, which is very annoying.
melissaAug 9th 2010 8:32AM
Im not too impressed with google chrome. i tried installing it in my computer then after a week of usage, it suddenly did not work. does not want to load any webpage or show any notices. it just shows a blank screen...i uninstalled it and never tried installing it again. though i wonder what happened...
BruceAug 9th 2010 9:37AM
As long as it's optional, I'm fine with it. I hate software that updates without letting me know first. That's something I love about firefox, and something aI hate about chrome (and all of google's products for that matter, they all come with "googleupdate").
I game online a lot, and I can tell that something is auto-updating when my ping doubles or triples in-game. I'd much ratter have a software that checks for updates when I'm launching it (like fierfox does right now), than a software that arbitrarily decides to start using my bandwidth and give me high ping.
DamianAug 9th 2010 10:24AM
It's not reactionary, they've been talking about this for months and months and months. Just look at the age of the bugs / blog posts / discussion group postings.
Android underlingAug 9th 2010 12:11PM
Just so long as they dont change my settings when they auto-upadate, like Chrome does. Sometimes I open up chrome options to find different boxes have been checked and my clearing history options changed. Its really annoying.
SilverWaveAug 9th 2010 2:19PM
A bold move but necessary for Windows users.
They are the group most at risk.
laeroAug 9th 2010 4:12PM
Silent updates are nice, however having an application always running in the background is not so nice (like googleupdate). This sound like the better way, check it when actual app is started, then update silently.
2late2dieAug 9th 2010 4:14PM
"In true, fluffy-purple-dinosaur Mozilla fashion, the behind-the-scenes auto-updater will be configurable."
That's why Firefox will always (unless this changes of course) remain my number one browser. Well, that and the 2 bagillion extensions :D