Why does the download page always claim my Fx is up-to-date, even though it isn't?
Each time a window pop-ups and tells me there is a new version of Fx available, I go to this page
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new
to download the latest version, because the build-in updater never works for me. And each time I do so, the page says I DO have the latest version installed, yet this is never true. Right now I'm using 32.0.2 but the latest version is 32.0.3. I've been monitoring this issue for far over a year now and it happens to me with every update, every time.
I always have to click on "Download a fresh copy" to really download the latest version and not even that works for sure as sometimes the download link gives me an older version; in that case I copy the download URL, paste it into the location bar and edit the version number in the URL to what it should really be and only then I really do get the correct version. At least this time that is not the case (the download link really downloads 32.0.3).
As a user I expect that as soon as the first user in the world sees an update window, the download page has been updated already to know about this new version, as well as all download links have been update to point to that new version. Pretty much every other company in the world gets that right but Mozilla fails at that for as long as I can think back. It would probably work right if the crappy inline updater was not broken to begin with, but that is another issue (one for that a bug exists already, I have checked that).
All Replies (4)
hello Mecki78, the patch level of the browser is not exposed to a website through your useragent - so mozilla.org like can only see that you're on version 32 of the browser (but not whether on 32.0, 32.0.1 or 32.0.3).
updated versions might also not be offered to mac os x users right away on the homepage, because as things are set up currently, mozilla needs to submit a new app version to apple and wait for it to be white-listed to avoid issues for OS X 10.9.5 users with gatekeeper (which can take a day or two): http://www.tuaw.com/2014/08/04/apples-changes-to-app-signing-could-leave-some-apps-blocked-by/
the better avenue would be to find out why the auto-updater isn't working in your case. what's happening exactly - do you get any error messages in the process?
If the patch level of the browser is not exposed to the website, the website should probably not claim that I'm running the latest version, since it cannot know for sure. Often patch level updates are security updates and those are the most critical ones (I can skip new features for ages, no problem, but a big security hole needs to be fixed ASAP). I'm tech-savvy enough to click on "Download a fresh copy", because I know what I'm doing and I know the page is wrong, but don't expect my mother to that ("But the page said, I am already running the latest version...").
The auto updater doesn't work because all apps I install on my Mac have root:wheel ownership (just like when installing apps from the Ma AppStore or those that ship as part of the system) and nobody but root:wheel has write permissions to the app bundle. This is actually standard for programs on any Linux system I know, why should I go with less security on my Mac?
This is no problem for AppStore apps (Apple updates those with a daemon running with root privileges) and this is also no problem for apps updating with Sparkle (after downloading and verifying the update, they will prompt for an admin password and then perform the actually file changes with root privileges), but Fx has no such mechanism. It will just try to update and fail because of insufficient privileges.
See Bug 318855, Bug 394984, all their duplicates and other related bugs.
Mecki78 trɔe
Firefox 32.0.3 is for fixing a serious security bug in NSS, so everybody should update as soon as possible.