turn off firefox nag pop-ups

[mintser]

Linux Mint 20.3 XFCE
Firefox ESR 106.0.5 (always updated to current)

Hi. A while back Mozilla added an obtrusive, annoying pop-up message nagging me to update Firefox. It does not turn off even after I update Firefox. I've googled around and tried changing all kinds of settings in about:config and in the Firefox backend to no avail.

All about:config settings starting with app.update* are disabled.

It also started nagging me about trying new features and I disabled every setting with *feature* to no avail.

I hope these nags are not hard baked "on" into the browser. I appreciate any tips; thank you.

[MiZoG]

Latest ESR is 102.x version.
Distro package of Firefox would never pop up a message and ask you to update.
Updates are handled by Mint's update manager.
What package of Firefox you've been using? Flatpak, tar.bz2 (from Mozilla), "nightly"?
Because what you describe is not normal.
Go to Application menu --> help --> About Firefox and re-check the version you run.

[mintser]

The version is what I reported, however it is not ESR as expected. I downloaded it from Mozilla's ESR/64-bit Linux link: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/a ... esktop-esr
So I'm confused. Somehow I'm not getting the ESR version despite clicking on it.
And I've been dealing with this nag pop-up for a long time, across several versions of Firefox.
Note that I have made all kinds of changes to prefs.js--maybe a setting I changed accidentally activated the update nags. I will have to test the default settings... (sigh)

My download link exactly:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=f ... lang=en-US

I will have to try downloading and installing it again and get back with you...

[billyswong]

A better-managed way to install Firefox ESR into Linux Mint may have been adding ppa:mozillateam/ppa (through "Software Sources" GUI or through command), then install firefox-esr through the built-in system ("Software Manager" or command line).

But I speculate your situation may be due to the Firefox ESR you downloaded launched an existing Firefox profile not created by ESR. And then this causes mess up as directly downloaded Firefox packages from Mozilla website are configured to fetch update by itself, not through the standard update system in Linux. And then your old profile tell the Firefox to listen to "rapid" channel, not the supposed "esr" channel.

[O-rion]

I use a firefox downloaded from mozilla, too.
I've put it under /opt/firefox.
I've changed permissions from root to my username.
And firefox now indicates updates ... I can click on it ... and it updates.
Before I changed permissions on its folder I had to download and manually unpack which of course was a bit annoying.
There were quite a lot of updates recently ...
There is a way to completely stop updates, but I guess I must not tell here, because it's of course a security flaw.

[mintser]

adding ppa:mozillateam/ppa

I've been advised to not add 3rd party repos because (and I've confirmed this is true) 3rd party packages tend to get installed, overwriting the versions designed to work with my distro, breaking my system and/or other software.

My philosophy is software should be designed to be code-checked by each distro, and put into their repos- and if it can't maintain all its dependencies without overwriting the system default's it shouldn't go in the repo. (Maybe that is already how it works?)

But I speculate your situation may be due to the Firefox ESR you downloaded launched an existing Firefox profile not created by ESR

That can't be; I just reset the profile to default and it does not say "ESR" in Help > About Firefox > [version], which by the way checks for an update, and then says "Up to date" with a checkmark and then seconds later the "Update available" pop-up appears. This is totally crazy. I need to re-install ESR tonight and verify it's actually ESR that's installed and running.

I've changed permissions from root to my username.

Why would you do that? Stuff in /opt is generally supposed to be owned by root, right?
I installed my FF to /opt/firefox and noticed the owner is my user, so I changed it to root.
However, this does not turn off the nag.

I need my software to update along with Mint's update system but Firefox ESR is not in the Mint repo, sadly.
If I can confirm that the aforementioned PPA won't hose my system I'd be willing to try that.
However, I would ask that ESR be added to the Mint repo; is there a reason it shouldn't be?

[mintser]

Well I was sure I had downloaded, installed, and ran ESR, but somehow that wasn't working, so I re-downloaded, re-installed, and now it appears to work. No nag. However, I lost all my settings and extensions. I should've exported my NoScript settings at least!

Ok, solved!

[mintser]

Afterall, I was mistaken-- NOT SOLVED! The nag is back. Now what? I haven't changed anything since I last posted.

[mikeflan]

If you want it fixed - back to the repository version.
I hope you don't do that so we can figure out what the problem is with the Mozilla's ESR/64-bit version.

[mintser]

I don't know why the nag is inconsistent. It was there the other day, and now I'm not seeing it anymore. In the "About" menu it says the version is 102.5.0esr (64-bit) and "Up to date". The last version I manually installed was 102.5, many months ago, so nothing has changed. This makes absolutely no sense. Open to theories.

By the way, is your name really Mike Flan? I just looked up to see if Flan was a surname; apparently it is. Not to get too off topic.

[Dullard du Jour]

The auto update is usually a telemetry setting. Go into About:Config and search for:

Code: Select all

toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled

and set it to False.

There may be other telemetry settings or update settings. Search for telemetry and for update in About:Config.

Of course, this may not work either as Mozilla has gotten very Microsoftish in its practices. Some years ago, when I used FF a lot, I had a great many "telemetry" settings that were disabled. There were also a lot of "media" settings I disabled as well.

[mintser]

Okay, it did it again. See screenshot. (And when I click the link https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/e ... ual-update to download the update it fails to load the page.)

I switched the config setting to false... I'll post back if that fails. Historically, changing about:config settings have had nil effect on this nag.

[billyswong]

Another place one can check is about:policies. For default Firefox installation in Linux Mint, it should show "DisableAppUpdate" as true.

Here is the content of /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/policies.json in my computer

Code: Select all

{
    "policies":
    {
        "DisableAppUpdate": true
    }
}

If your ESR firefox is installed in another directory, put the policies.json to the corresponding location.

[mintser]

I neglected to mention I actually tried that; it has no effect. I now have to wait and see if the 'updatePing' setting did anything.

[billyswong]

I neglected to mention I actually tried that; it has no effect. I now have to wait and see if the 'updatePing' setting did anything.

So you did see the "DisableAppUpdate" being marked as true in "about:policies", but the update nag popup still appeared?

[mikeflan]

My guess is you will get better help here. But if you want to try the Firefox forum click on Sign In/Up here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop

By the way, is your name really Mike Flan

No, but my name is Mike

[Dullard du Jour]

My guess is you will get better help here. But if you want to try the Firefox forum click on Sign In/Up here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop

By the way, is your name really Mike Flan

No, but my name is Mike

Going to Mozilla is probably his best bet. The trouble as I see it is a bad URL path to the upgrade files, that path is controlled by Mozilla. The pop up is being provided because it cannot find the path to the files so an error code is generated and a pop up is kicked back to the user.

ESR is an Enterprise browser for corporations and businesses that have an IT department, as I recall it is a "lighter" version of the standard FF. The OP can uninstall ESR and go with the FF from Synaptic or Software Manager. That is version 109.0 and should not auto update or provide any sort of pop up.

Other than using FF for its geo-location that I sometimes need for some business transactions, I stepped away from FF long ago. The suggestion to disable settings in About:Config is a good suggestion but may not work. There are multiple telemetry, update, upgrade, and toolkit settings that may need to be looked at. Always a roll of the dice and going to the Mozilla help forum will reduce the number of rolls to get a winning combination.