Firefox 4 may not get silent updates after all

Filed under: Mozilla, Beta, BrowsersWhile Firefox 4 is slated to receive a boatload of new features, it looks like silent updates might not be one of them. In notes from a recent Mozilla platform meeting, the Chrome-style update feature has been flagged as "at risk" and could well be dropped.

Firefox will still download updates automatically, as it does now, and offer to install them prior to launching the browser. A silent method would have been nice, since it remove the possibility of a user simply clicking cancel or deny and running an out-of-date version. That system has certainly worked well for Chrome, though Chrome does have one advantage over Firefox when it comes to being "silent."

Since Chrome installs in a Windows user's application data folder, UAC prompts aren't displayed when it updates. Firefox, on the other hand, defaults to installing into the Program Files directory. As a result, even if Mozilla did add silent updating, Firefox would still cause a UAC pop-up to appear, which a user could cancel. With Chrome, on the other hand, there's really no escaping the updates.

What do you think? Would dropping silent updates from Firefox 4 be a bad thing, or is it a non-issue?Firefox 4 may not get silent updates after all originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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