Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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lasardo
Posts: 182
Joined: September 9th, 2018, 1:41 pm

Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by lasardo »

In these versions the UI and about:config settings to disable updates will not work. The recommended way to disable updates is to make a policies.json file.
In your "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" directory created a subdirectory called distribution .
In there make a file called policies.json . Make sure the file is NOT policies.json.txt - show file extensions if necessary.
File should contain this code:
{
"policies": {
"DisableAppUpdate": true
}
}

Likely, this would work as an alternative:
{ "policies": { "DisableAppUpdate": true } }

When you start Firefox and go to help about, you should see "Updates disabled by your system administrator". Every time you manually install a new version, the distribution directory will be deleted. To work around this, once distribution is created with policies.json inside, copy it to somewhere other than C:\Program Files so you can copy it back if you manually update or install a new version.

References: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/6 ... easenotes/ and https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templ ... /README.md
morat
Posts: 6403
Joined: February 3rd, 2009, 6:29 pm

Re: Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by morat »

How about increasing the app.update.interval preference and disabling the app.update.doorhanger preference?

Remove or hide the update features in the preferences
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1420514
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cg ... 20514#c118

Similar thread: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3041858
lasardo
Posts: 182
Joined: September 9th, 2018, 1:41 pm

Re: Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by lasardo »

That should work if all is set properly like setting to ask instead of update, and assuming the system clock doesn't get jumped around. I am just documenting the method suggested by the release notes as an FAQ, at first glance the readme looks long and complicated but the significant parts are simple.
Brummelchen
Posts: 4480
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 10:51 am

Re: Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by Brummelchen »

just do the update to avoid crashes or bugs - those are nightlies or still not existant.
please read from here, its same matter (and same waste of time)
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14810465

if you dont like updateing, dont cry us rivers when firefox misbehave because of that - and step back to v60esr which dont get feature updates, only bugfixes that far.

if you work in an enterprise environement ofc updates should happen by purpose
-> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addo ... generator/
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Snazzle
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Location: Toronto
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Re: Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by Snazzle »

morat wrote:How about increasing the app.update.interval preference and disabling the app.update.doorhanger preference?
I just spent several hours trying 20 or 30 different tips to shut that nag off...even started doing a scorched earth of various ini's, prefs and exe's in the application folder, and deleting reg keys. Nothing. I was almost ready to resign myself to "Chrome" when I tried your 'doorhanger' suggestion....

I wanna bear your children. :wink: :mrgreen:
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LIMPET235
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Re: Method to disable updates in Firefox 63, 64, 65

Post by LIMPET235 »

That's good news but this is getting locked due to the age of the original posts.
[Ancient Amateur Astronomer.]
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(Always choose the "Custom" Install.)
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