Technipages

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Enable or Disable Automatic Updates in Firefox

Posted on by Mitch Bartlett 37 Comments

I don’t like Firefox constantly updating the version or the Add-ons all by itself  at startup without my knowledge. You can enable or disable automatic updates in Firefox with these steps.

From Firefox Menus

  1. Select the “Menu” Menu Button button in the upper-right corner, then choose “Options“.
  2. Select “General” on the left pane.
  3. Scroll down to the “Firefox Updates” section.
  4. Select one of the following options as desired:
    • Automatically install updates
    • Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them
    • Never check for updates
  5. Check or uncheck the “Use a background service to install updates” option as desired.

From about:config Menu

  1. Type “about:config” in the address bar, then press “Enter“.
  2. Search for the “app.update.auto” setting.
  3. Double-click the “app.update.auto” option to toggle the setting. If set to “true“, automatic updates are enabled. If set to “false“, automatic updates are disabled.

Via prefs.js file

  1. Close Firefox.
  2. Navigate to the following location based on your operating system.
    • Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 – “%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox“
    • Unix/Linux – “~/.mozilla/“
    • Mac OS X – “~/Library/Mozilla/” or “~/Library/Application Support/“
  3. Open the “Profiles” folder.
  4. Open the folder that represents the profile you would like to edit. The name of the folder will vary. It is usually a bunch of characters, followed by “.default”.
  5. Open the prefs.js file with a text editor like Notepad.
  6. Look for a line that contains app.update.enabled. If it doesn’t exist, add a line for it in the file and set it as desired using these examples:
    • user_pref("app.update.enabled", true); = Automatic updates enabled
    • user_pref("app.update.enabled", false); = Automatic updates disabled

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Comments

  1. mountainkiddo says

    Version 68 not able to turn off updates completely.
    Thank you for the hidden info regarding the config:app.update.auto. But with the newer versions the option “Never check for updates” no longer exists in the Options page. Setting the app.update.auto to false does not persist., Open a new instance of Firefox and it is reset back to true.

  2. Ticked-off user says

    Let’s hope the about:config auto-update change I did this morning works, because several times in the last couple weeks, ****I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF USING FIREFOX WITH 12 OR 15 DIFFERENT TABS ALREADY OPENED****, and when I clicked a link to open in a new tab,..it opened a new tab alright, but then wouldn’t go anywhere, or do anything other than to tell me it needs to update, and that “all your open tabs and webpages will be restored when firefox restarts”…

    …which was patently false, as it never did restore any of them.

    I’m all for updating, maybe even forced updating, but NOT when I’m in the middle of doing something and out of nowhere it is forcing me to abandon everything I’m doing because it decided to update itself.

  4. Clive Page says

    I’m also annoyed at the constant nagging to update. I installed v67 as a result of these nags and it has several terrible consequences. (1) Loses all your saved bookmarks and logins unless you deliberately use their Sync mechanism, which I had to do. Now my mobile phone is also synced and has my saved passwords which I didn’t want. (2) Lost nearly all my cookies so every site I visit nags me to accept their cookies again. (3) All the icons on the menu bar got lost in the update, and are only now slowly being restored as I visit these sites.

    I am very keen to avoid computers by others in my family having to cope with the considerable hassle of recovering from updating to v67 but haven’t so far worked out how to stop the nagging to update continuing to occur. Will try a few of the solutions suggested here.

  5. Brenda Helverson says

    Last night, Firefox automatically updated and broke Paperport 14.5. I had to revert to last week’s settings to fix it. According to others, this is a recurring problem. Thank you for these instructions – I will avoid updating Firefox for a while and hopefully they will fix this problem.

  6. aeiou says

    There is a reason Firefox updates itself automatically. Just look at any security blog and you’ll see that only this week 2 critical vulnerabilities were discovered, one of which was also present in Firefox ESR. When you disable software updates, you are implicitly taking responsibility for any security flaws present in your current unpatched version. When your system gets compromised you’ll be the one who has to clear up.

  7. el Commandante says

    I’ve used FF and Thunderbird for 10y +.
    Now just no more Mozilla period.
    Opera gone! FF gone! who’s next?.

  8. Ross D says

    Just do it in Firefox. That’s the way I always go. Under the about:config menu. Give them a couple tries, for updates and check out which of the last few were decent. Download that version and install over the old one. Always go back and check your config settings after. I’ve been “got” a few times.

  9. Scott says

    Yes this helped, NO MORE FIREFOX !!!
    They joined the deep state globalist cabal and are no longer
    independant computer user friendly.
    Pale Moon
    Maxthon
    and other browsers with adblocking are a better browser now.

  10. FoxICT says

    Exit Firefox
    Goto the folder C:\ProgramData\Mozilla\updates and delete the updates contained inside the Folder
    Right click on the folder to reveal the Folder Properties, and select Security
    Click EDIT, and for each of the SYSTEM , ADMINSITRATORS & USERS security permissions, remove the WRITE permissions.
    Tick the checkbox “Replace All Child Permission entries … ” and Apply.
    This will disable the downloading and writing to the UPDATES folder and the Updates messages.
    Beware this may compromise the security effectiveness within Firefox as each minor update would provide.

  11. C.Smythe says

    get ver 60.4.0 or older if you want disable updates. at mozilla search ‘previous versions’ on
    Advanced Install Options & Other Platforms

  12. PimPamPet says

    Eachtime I get another notification popup for yet another update at startup.
    I used Firefox for many years but this is getting so annoying that I will switch soon to another browser.

  13. BW says

    FF 64 removes useful options such as opening page “blank” and a seperate set of “home pages”. FF63 removed many of the options to control updating. When will the devlopers stop telling users how they must conform?
    Unfortunately I tried all the options here and it still notifies me that I should update.

  14. jumbomumbo says

    Horrible constant updates and I do not have a preferences option to STOP them Arrrrrrgh, so frustrating.

  15. NoName says

    The “never check for updates” option seems to have been removed in the most recent update (I updated to 64.0.2 on MacOS recently). Is there another way to achieve this? I do not want to be bugged by this (every couple of days, apparently), and never, ever want the check to occur auotmatically, even if it doesn’t do the auto-install. I’ll quit using the SW if this doesn’t get fixed.

  16. SkyDiver says

    I need to stay on Firefox v.56 in order to run external tools that require this version.
    The tools don’t need to open the UI so it went fine for a while.
    I then opened the UI once and all was good, and then when I opened the UI again it went on and auto-installed the latest version.

    The suggested fix in this page’s article didn’t cut it for me, but the following seems to workaround the auto-updated:

    (*) Note: This was validated for v56 under a linux (Ubuntu) system, I can’t vouch for other FF/OS versions.

    1. Install firefox
    2. Open the menu and go to Preferences
    3. Under the “Firefox Updates” section, select “Never check for updates”
    4. By this time, the auto-update mechanism already kicked into action and will auto-install the latest version upon the next app launch.
    5. Close firefox
    Note that at this point, you should already have a ~/.mozilla directory, containing your saved preferences.
    6. Uninstall firefox and re-install it.
    7. Launch firefox
    At this point FF will pick up your preferences (from the ~/.mozilla directory) and will have the “Never check for updates” flag pre-configured on launch, and will thus not auto-update anymore.

    Bonus:
    Comment #137 on Mozilla’s issue regarding this subject (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1420514) specifies how to disable updates on newer versions (I’ll assume it’s relevant to v64+ and maybe even v63+).

    Following is the comment’s content.
    Cheers.

    —
    You can turn off updates using our policy support:

    https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md

    Create a directory called “distribution” in the same directory as your Firefox executable (Firefox.app/Content/Resources on Mac).

    Create a file called policies.json in that directory and put the following in it:

    {
    “policies”: {
    “DisableAppUpdate”: true
    }
    }

    And you won’t get asked for updates.

    If you’re on Windows, you can also use GPO to do it.
    —

  17. ttot says

    Firefox had removed all its good features and added many bloatwares which are hidden and not adjustable.
    about:config do not longer help you prevent htese bloatwares for example bugging you to update, tracking your movements, habits, behavior and timing. Mozilla is now turned into another tracking tool like Facebook, Google, Paypal, Ebay, Aliexpress, Alibaba and many others. I am afraid these tools will sell our information.

  18. Oliver says

    The FF developers did NOT remove the ability to disable updates, they pushed it to a place where only people with administrative privilege can do it. If you have this right on your computer, you can use group policies. But Windows 7/8/10 doesn’t offer the editor in the Home version. Then you still can do it in the registry directly.
    Save the text from “Windows Registry Editor..” to the end as a *.REG file and import it. Afterwards you will see a message in options that updates are disabled by administrators. As a administrator you should know how to import and how to get rid of it as well.

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
    “DisableAppUpdate”=dword:00000001

  19. Ted S. says

    Agree with Michael. I’ve got a data plan with daytime caps, so update anything in the overnight hours. It’s vitally important for me to be able to update when I want and not when the software forces me.

  20. Michael says

    This was helpful up to Version 63.03 for me. Then FireFox removed the option to manually update. Starting with V. 64.0 you get the nags telling you it is out of date, and cannot get rid of them.

    I update FireFox once a month on a schedule, MY schedule. I should not have to keep confirming I don’t want to update at that very second when it is not scheduled. I may seem a minor issue to some, but I think most have had enough of nag screens and popup windows getting in the way of getting something done.

    I don’t recognize the specific entry for that in about:config. It seems it is all or nothing now…. If there is a workaround for that that allowes true manual updating without the nags, it would be appreciated.

  21. David says

    Annoying nagging prompt persists even after taking all of these steps. I’ve used FF since ’86, switched to MS Edge on Win 10, which is worse, back to FF, can’t turn off the nagging prompts for software update.

  22. Joeh Blackcrow says

    Firefox seems to get more and more a victim of the paranoia in social and cultural consciousness. May be, Mozilla should think about two separate release lines: one for paranoid main stream people who hate decisions and believe blindly in security and one for those people loving Mozilla products, but want to stay responsible for themselves. ;)

    Many recent changes in the last 2 years made me think about forgetting Firefox and switch to an alternative browser with more freedom for the user very often, but unfortunately, all others I tested, are worse.

  25. Danny says

    They just removed the option to turn off updates in version 63.
    And I just removed the browser from my computer.
    I will not accept any Windows 10-like behavior on my computer
    Either I control the software or the software controls me.
    Such a shame that Firefox just turned into crapware.

  26. Renato says

    SOLVED the problem.
    These are the steps.
    Install the old version of Firefox. but do not open it.
    Add to the Hosts file (..Windows \ System 32 \ drivers \ etc) the following staves:

    127.0.0.1 http://www.mozilla.org
    127.0.0.1 download.cdn.mozilla.net
    127.0.0.1 aus5.mozilla.org
    127.0.0.1 download.mozilla.org

    Open Fir. and perform the steps described in the article.
    (From about: config set app.update.auto false, app.update.enabled false)

    Select the “Menu” Button menu in the upper-right corner, then choose “Options”.
    Select “Advances” or Select “General” on the left pane and
    Scroll down to “Firefox Updates” section.
    Select the following option:
    “Never check for updates”
    Select in “Advances” “show update history”. It must be empty. If it is not empty Check the Mozzilla directories in appdata / roaming, appdata / local and appdata / localLow and empty them. This step is optional. We finished.
    To check from the menu:
    Support
    about Firefox
    check for updates
    The system answers “Firefox is up to date”. Finish.
    Warning: this work prevents the update of other Firefox versions present in the machine.

  27. John says

    They are removing the option to turn off updates completely.
    They are turning Firefox into Windows 10 riskware.
    From now on I cannot call Firefox free software as there is no more freedom in it.

  28. novaj469 says

    Choose ‘custom’ during installation and then untick ‘install mozilla maintainance services’. this is what updates firefox in background

  29. Dancing With Lasagna says

    I have done all three things. Firefox continually rams updates down my throat and screws up countless websites, worst of all the banking websites I use. I’m tired of being a victim, and no one knows how not to be one,

  30. Mariebattis says

    Unfortunately some websites have their own auto refresh setting which over-rides any Firefox settings. This why it keeps doing it despite the ‘fix’

  31. JILLIAN TRIBBETT says

    I am on firefox 37, and it updated automatically even though i set it not to in the options. Any idea why? It just started doing this a couple weeks ago, even though I’d been on firefox 37 for years. I run on XP, and Win 2008.

  32. Susan says

    Hi Mitch! I was so hoping to see a response (on this page) to my ‘help’ request re: FF forcing auto updates despite doing everything you suggested. Do you have any idea why your ‘fix’ doesn’t work, and do you have any other idea how to stop FF from automatically updating? Seems hard to believe I’m the only one with this problem, :). Sincere thanks, Susan

  34. Susan says

    I have, in both Options and “about:config”, checked or changed settings for Firefox to NOT update automatically. It goes ahead and does it anyway. Now what can I do? Obviously, Firefox ignores my preferences and forces automatic updates, :( Thanks!!

  35. Doug says

    Great help! Up to date too!(I guess I can thank my k9 search engine for that..
    Yes, I too resent updates being done automatically. I got onto Firefox for thinking it was protecting my choice freedom and such, but it seems that the new regime of bosses is forgetting why people originally got it. Figures, since the new guys in control got that way by a political decision which turfed one of the founders of Firefox.

  36. Loc_rabbirt says

    Thank you so much for your share, I want stay in 48.0.2 and it still update daily even I configuration in Options. I will try your steps.

  37. John M says

    Yes, this post absolutely helped! I have been searching for a way to turn off auto updates and search for updates only when I choose, which used to be the way for browsers or if it’s still use, used to be easy to set.

    As a former computer tech of 15 years working on getting back in; the idea of using default Firefox or install ESR for a Firefox that doesn’t update that fast, basically an ultimatum of choosing one side or the other, removing user customization is VERY stupid and is the sole reason why the tech industry used to be good — fix now, ship later — and its not anymore — ship now, fix later —

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