Mozilla getting sneakier about updates to Firefox

Estimated reading time: 1 minute.

According to the release notes, Firefox 47.0.1 was released on June 28. I only found out about it yesterday (half a month later), when I happened to run the FileHippo Update Checker.

After seeing the new Firefox version reported by FileHippo, I looked at Firefox’s ‘About Firefox’ dialog, and it offered to upgrade to version 47.0.1. I went ahead, and I’m now running 47.0.1.

Why is Mozilla no longer announcing new versions of Firefox? If their goal is to make updates invisible to users, why didn’t my version of Firefox update to the new version automatically?

For what it’s worth, Firefox 47.0.1 appears to fix one obscure crashing problem.

About jrivett

Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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