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Antony
Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 11718
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 24 Feb, 2007 6:19 am Firefox's (semi) forced updating policy? |
[sdp=82858] |
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I believe I've complained this before, during Firefox 1.0.0.x or 1.5.0.x.
Today, I experienced the same again today.
I saw this message dialogue:
I didn't have much choice, did I? I would be forced to update Firefox then or upon re-launching Firefox.
I then receive following window.
Okay, this is my setting in Preferences, which is default.
I should've opted not to let Firefox automatically download and install the update, but I did not go through that section of the Preferences.
How many people are there checking every single settings of Preferences? I believe there are a huge number of people just leave most settings in default. Why does Mozilla Foundation need to take such average user's behaviour to force people updating the software? (In plain words, dirty tactic.)
From my experience with operating system and other software, many of them would check if the current installed version is latest or not, however, none of those would set it to download the update and install the update automatically. Mac OS X checks periodically, but would ask me if I want to download and install it.
Not everybody must live with the latest of whatsoever software or patches. Generally speaking, a huge percentage of Firefox's active users are university/college students, and many of them want everything free and opensource, as well as unable to live without the latest of software or patches. However, using such tactic (not everybody checks every settings of Preferences or confident on changing them) and forcing people to update the software is an unethical ploy.
I am extremely unhappy about being forced to update Firefox to the latest version.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
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Fulvio
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 10312
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| 24 Feb, 2007 10:42 am |
[sdp=82868] |
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I think that anyone paying attention should have known this behavior, although, I agree that the individual should be making the decisions. But, in all fairness, how many people would bother checking for updates? As soon as i get a program, I take a look at all its features, and the Advanced|Updates did not look right. I have unchecked the first and third box, and changed to Firefox ask me what to do.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.14, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.27, SM1.1.9, Flock1.1.4, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG7.5, JRE1.6_05 |
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Don_HH2K
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 4445
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| 24 Feb, 2007 11:01 am |
[sdp=82871] |
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I fail to see how exactly this is a "dirty tactic". Since it went massively public Firefox has also kept a reputation of being the "secure browser" and such, but one major obstacle is that people don't apply security updates, thus defeating the entire purpose. Automatic update is just a way of getting around that.
For awhile now I've been using third-party builds of Firefox; often they're faster if you get one compiled with optimizations for your CPU, and most don't automatically update. Unfortunately these are not updated as often as the official builds unless you find somebody building either nightly or on a fairly regular basis.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2 x64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20070218 BonEcho/2.0.0.1 (mmoy CE K8N-X02)
Main rig: Turion64X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, 100GB HD, Radeon X300, 15" LCD, XP Pro x64
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Dr Lobster*
Joined: 29 May 2006
Posts: 149
Location: Norfolk, UK
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| 24 Feb, 2007 3:55 pm |
[sdp=82880] |
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i think this is a problem with a lot of software products - many of them install shell extensions and so on without asking - take for instance msn messenger - it adds a great big dirty 'My Shared Folder' in the root of my computer, it's not necessary as this folder is under the my documents folder anyway. it really does frustrate me when apps like video card drivers put some useless tray icon application in the system tray that serves no purposes other than to gobble memory and let you change your display resolution etc in 2 less mouse clicks than it would take normally (something which i would assume few people do anyway once their pc is setup).
the thing i really hate is the amount of crappy utilities that try to make you install the google or yahoo toolbar (which are just useless). we don't want it.
in the case of firefox, i don't actually mind it making you use the latest version, i guess it's designed to ensure inexperienced users are protected as much as possible.
i also find how all these security flaws are reported: in a completely sensationalist and unbalanced way. most are only theoretically possible and require you to do something stupid, i really don't worry about it too much. if you go and download stuff from warez sites without proper protection you deserve everything you get.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
Last edited by Dr Lobster* on 24 Feb, 2007 4:04 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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SSS
Joined: 21 Mar 2003
Posts: 236
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| 24 Feb, 2007 4:05 pm |
[sdp=82881] |
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| Don_HH2K wrote: |  I fail to see how exactly this is a "dirty tactic". Since it went massively public Firefox has also kept a reputation of being the "secure browser" and such, but one major obstacle is that people don't apply security updates, thus defeating the entire purpose. Automatic update is just a way of getting around that.
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Agreed. I see nothing wrong with making you update. Why would you stay with a version with a security issue? If, for whatever reason, you don't like that, you can easily change that in the Options. "Problem" solved. 
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
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Fulvio
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 10312
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| 24 Feb, 2007 6:26 pm |
[sdp=82884] |
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The only objection which I have, an, that's why I will not have everything checked, is that once the download has occurred, one has to give up on anything which is being done. I always have: ask me what to do turned on.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.10) Gecko/20070216 Firefox/1.5.0.10
"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.14, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.27, SM1.1.9, Flock1.1.4, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG7.5, JRE1.6_05 |
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Antony
Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 11718
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| 24 Feb, 2007 7:46 pm |
[sdp=82885] |
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| Don_HH2K wrote: | | I fail to see how exactly this is a "dirty tactic". |
Of course, you don't see such default preference setting as a dirty tactic, unlike me, you are in favour of getting the latest of whatsoever.
Mozilla Foundation clearly take the advantage of those who do not check entire Preferences panels, or those who do not understand everything in the Preferences, or those who do not feel comfortable on changing the settings in Preferences. By setting not just checking for the updates but also automatically downloading and installing is clearly a shameful unethical dirty tactic that forces people to get and inistall the latest version software.
| Don_HH2K wrote: | | Since it went massively public Firefox has also kept a reputation of being the "secure browser" and such, but one major obstacle is that people don't apply security updates, thus defeating the entire purpose. Automatic update is just a way of getting around that. |
"secure" means rushing for the latest updates?
I never heard such good reputation on Firefox, merely an advertising phrase used by Firefox evangelists.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
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Antony
Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 11718
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| 24 Feb, 2007 7:55 pm |
[sdp=82886] |
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Further, what makes people unhappy about Firefox's such "dirty tactic" is...
users were only informed after the update has been downloaded, (and would be installed once relaunching).  completely disrespecting users those who do not go through every single panel in Preferences.
Most software would only check and tell users that there's an update. They don't download such update in such shameful and unethical stealth way.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
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Don_HH2K
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 4445
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| 24 Feb, 2007 7:58 pm |
[sdp=82887] |
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| Antony wrote: | | Don_HH2K wrote: | | I fail to see how exactly this is a "dirty tactic". |
Of course, you don't see such default preference setting as a dirty tactic, unlike me, you are in favour of getting the latest of whatsoever. |
You're right, I really don't see it that way, and can't understand the logic behind calling an automatic update a "dirty tactic". It's one thing if you're leaping major versions (i.e. Firefox 1.5 to 2.0), but minor version updates (i.e. 2.0.0.1 to 2.0.0.2) doesn't seem like such a big deal: oftentimes without updating you'd leave yourself open to a security threat that could otherwise be mitigated.
| Antony wrote: | | Mozilla Foundation clearly take the advantage of those who do not check entire Preferences panels, or those who do not understand everything in the Preferences, or those who do not feel comfortable on changing the settings in Preferences. |
Tell me, though, is this necessarily a bad thing? Those users probably wouldn't know that they're missing security updates that could potentially address a severe threat that's being exploited in-the-wild. So if you can't get a user to visit an update site every so often to check for new security updates, why not automate the entire process to save both time and unnecessary headaches?
| Antony wrote: | | Don_HH2K wrote: | | Since it went massively public Firefox has also kept a reputation of being the "secure browser" and such, but one major obstacle is that people don't apply security updates, thus defeating the entire purpose. Automatic update is just a way of getting around that. |
"secure" means rushing for the latest updates? |
In many cases, yes, indeed it does.
| Antony wrote: | | I never heard such good reputation on Firefox, merely an advertising phrase used by Firefox evangelists. |
And do you have any disproof that Firefox is equally or less secure than its major competitor, Internet Explorer?
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2 x64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20070218 BonEcho/2.0.0.1 (mmoy CE K8N-X02)
Main rig: Turion64X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, 100GB HD, Radeon X300, 15" LCD, XP Pro x64
Server: P2 @ 233MHz, 192MB PC66, 20GB HD, 13.3" LCD, Windows Server 2003 |
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geffr
Geff
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 124
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| 24 Feb, 2007 8:37 pm |
[sdp=82889] |
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I could be wrong on this, but my MEMORY is that 1.5.x gave me the option whether to download & install last night.
Is this behavior new with 2.x?
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.0.10) Gecko/20070216 Firefox/1.5.0.10 |
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Mandrake
Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 3591
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| 24 Feb, 2007 9:02 pm |
[sdp=82890] |
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The functionality is new to Firefox 2. This is good. Go back to '04 and think about how bad the Sasser worm was. If people had the patch installed it wouldn't have been a problem. If people don't want to install patches and updates to keep their products secure then shove the updates down their throats I say!
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.2)
Core 2 Duo E8200 (@ 3.6GHz) | Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 | 2GB G-Skill/2GB Kingston DDR2-800 RAM (4GB total) | GeForce 9800 GTX (@ 800/2000/2500) |
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Fulvio
Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 10312
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| 24 Feb, 2007 9:15 pm |
[sdp=82891] |
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| geffr wrote: | I could be wrong on this, but my MEMORY is that 1.5.x gave me the option whether to download & install last night.
Is this behavior new with 2.x? |
Indeed, I noticed the difference, since I carry everything. But, what may be coming on is even more disturbing, like FF3.0 making itself default, no question asked.
I can understand, though, that many of these tacticsare to protect the clueless, i.e. the majority. I like to have full control of my computer, so I look at the preferences, and if I don't like what I see, I make changes. If that does not work, I get rid of the software.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.14, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.27, SM1.1.9, Flock1.1.4, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG7.5, JRE1.6_05 |
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Antony
Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 11718
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| 25 Feb, 2007 12:03 am |
[sdp=82898] |
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| Don_HH2K wrote: | | Antony wrote: | | I never heard such good reputation on Firefox, merely an advertising phrase used by Firefox evangelists. |
And do you have any disproof that Firefox is equally or less secure than its major competitor, Internet Explorer? |
The website that brave enough to speak out the myth about Firefox, getInternetExplorer.com provided quite a bit on this issue.
| Mandrake wrote: | | Go back to '04 and think about how bad the Sasser worm was. If people had the patch installed it wouldn't have been a problem. If people don't want to install patches and updates to keep their products secure then shove the updates down their throats I say! |
Sasser worm is Windows operating system worm, not browser's. Also, the blame shouldn't be shifted to users who were unable to rush for the latest patches.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.9.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3
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geffr
Geff
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 124
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| 25 Feb, 2007 2:57 am |
[sdp=82900] |
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| Fulvio wrote: | | geffr wrote: | I could be wrong on this, but my MEMORY is that 1.5.x gave me the option whether to download & install last night.
Is this behavior new with 2.x? |
Indeed, I noticed the difference, since I carry everything. But, what may be coming on is even more disturbing, like FF3.0 making itself default, no question asked. |
Unless I decide to move to XP or Vista, I'll likely be changing browsers to Opera in the future.
FF 2.x has horrible memory leaks with Win 98 (including .02) & for reasons unknown to me my isp's web mail which loads instantly in 1.5.x takes forever in 2.0.x.
3.0 is not going to be Win 98 compatable.
While some think it's a poor choice to stay on Win 98, I see only 2 shortcomings:
1. 4 gb file size lmit
2. New software is incompatable (catch 22).
What security issues there are are caused by Microsoft's greed, not because XP/Vista are superior. In fact when XP first came out, I remember a friend telling me the way to defeat the then current XP worm of the week was to right click on the worm's executable & force it to run in a Win 9X enviornment, which rendered the worm useless.
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Antony
Joined: 18 Jun 2002
Posts: 11718
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| 25 Feb, 2007 5:15 am |
[sdp=82904] |
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| Don_HH2K wrote: | | Antony wrote: | | Don_HH2K wrote: | | I fail to see how exactly this is a "dirty tactic". |
Of course, you don't see such default preference setting as a dirty tactic, unlike me, you are in favour of getting the latest of whatsoever. |
You're right, I really don't see it that way, and can't understand the logic behind calling an automatic update a "dirty tactic". It's one thing if you're leaping major versions (i.e. Firefox 1.5 to 2.0), but minor version updates (i.e. 2.0.0.1 to 2.0.0.2) doesn't seem like such a big deal: oftentimes without updating you'd leave yourself open to a security threat that could otherwise be mitigated. |
Let's say this is not version updating, but something else. Would you be happy if you were only told after something new or would be changed would apply automatically when you re-launch the software next time? When in fact Firefox could have showed courtesy by asking users' permissions first.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
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