14 DAY TRIAL // One of the side effects of the rapid release cycle of Firefox is that the hassle of updating, even in the highly automated process Firefox provides, comes once every six weeks rather than once a year or so. Mozilla is working on making the update process as streamlined and as invisible as possible.
To do this, Mozilla is aiming to have a completely silent update process for Firefox, as well as its other products.
What this means is that updates will be downloaded and installed with no involvement from users, at most, they'll be notified that the update process is undergoing.
But there are a few issues to overcome for a completely invisible process.
Windows UAC is an unnecessary annoyance
On Windows for example, users need administrative privileges to update Firefox, even if the process is automated.
This means that non-admin users will be presented with the Windows UAC dialog for each update. Mozilla wants to get rid of this unnecessary annoyance.
When Mozilla transitioned to the six-weeks release schedule, it was able to take the lessons learned by Google with Chrome the hard way and apply them.
Google Chrome also has silent updates. To get past the UAC dialog, Google Chrome is not installed in the Program Files folder, which would require admin privileges, but the user's app data folder.
Mozilla doesn't want to go down this path since it means Firefox will only work for the user that installs it, not a good solution for multi-user computers.
Firefox and other Mozilla products will use an optional updater service on Windows
So Mozilla is thinking about an updater service that will run in the background and handle the updates.
Using a Windows service means that users will only see the UAC dialog once and only once, no matter how many times they update. Google also uses an updater service for all of its desktop apps, including Chrome.
However, a Mozilla service running all the time in the background doesn't sound great to those looking to maximize performance. The more things you have running, the slower your computer is.
But the Mozilla update service should have a minimal, almost non-existent effect on performance.
To ensure this, Mozilla will only use one service for all Firefox channels, Nightly, Aurora, Beta and Release, but also for other products, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and so on.
What's more, users can stop, disable or even uninstall the Mozilla update service and Firefox will continue to update itself like it always has.
It's also an optional install. The feature should be implemented by early 2012, meaning it should be landing alongside Firefox 10.
What's New page will show up less often
But a Windows service only fixes on issue. Mozilla is working to streamline the process entirely.
For example, it is working on removing the What's New page that shows up after every update, since users found it distracting and not that useful.
Instead, the page will only be displayed if there are new features that the user must really know about. This should be implemented in the fourth quarter of 2011, so it could end up being used when Firefox 9 lands in the stable channel.
Less often update notifications
Now, when an update is downloaded, Firefox will notify users that they need to restart their browsers to install it after 12 hours. This window will be expanded to 24 hours. This should be ready by early 2012.
Add-ons will default to compatible
Another change to be implemented by 2012, add-ons will default to compatible making sure that they will work with new Firefox versions unless they really are incompatible.
Updates will be installed at shutdown
Another thing that users find annoying is that Firefox applies updates at startup. This means you have to wait for a few tens of seconds before you can actually use Firefox, an inconvenience in some cases. Mozilla is looking to switch things around and update at shutdown. This change has no set release date.
These changes are all in various states of planning and implementation. However, they should all be completed by the time Firefox 10 lands, making it the first Firefox to implement completely silent updates.
