I am a user of browsers and though I like it the most the Firefox drives me crazy with the constant updating notices. I will never let any program auto update itself if I have a choice - sorry, I like to know if something is happening with the things I use - but the frequent bugging of the Firefox to update, update, update, update, update, update, update, update, update, update, update, update is driving me mad! Why the f*ck update?! The current version works just great!! One or two brought me noticable and interesting (thought still marginal in the overall purpose) changes throughout a perhaps 5 years window, the rest just bugging me and pushes self advertising 'what monumental new things we brought to you' pages on next start. Breaks the flow of use frequently, it is a user hostile behaviour. Do security ONLY updates (or better yet, work slower and bring a secure version to us in the first place please!) and let me look for new features on my own time, ok?!
(this is a very bad trend in the software industry, pushing updates on the user like if the software had the same importance to the user like it is for its developers, if the life's purpose for the user was to keep it the most updated and satisfy the software packages' needs, no, not at all, for users it is a tool not the center of admiration that want to nurse and cherish. it is a bad trend but that is not an excuse to do bad as well but a reason to make it better please)
Sorry if you've considered this (or if you just wanted to vent) but maybe installing Firefox through a package manager would help you control when it updates.
The primary "new features" of a new browser release are (A) security fixes and (B) support for new web standards, which websites will adopt. If you are not a security expert or a web developer, how are you supposed to judge whether these new features are something you want to upgrade for? You probably won't even know that you're missing these new features-- if you wait long enough to upgrade, you might fall victim to a long patched vulnerability or your web experience will start to break in subtle ways. This isn't a flaw of the web but a feature, we (the web developer community) have fought long and hard for the browser developers to stay up to date with the web's changing feature set so that we have less of a "feature window" to target.
But new standards in every 2 weeks? You are kidding, right?! : ))
And security updates as well every other weeks?! (or sometimes two in one day or in three days in between: just checked the update history) Are the software products in THAT poor quality, really?! Then those should not be released yet! Those are THE vulnaribility then. It is a scam then if this is deliberate - releasing poor products before securing just to occupy themseves for long long time to come finishing it, make it properly.... Maybe shouldn't include those standards in a heist, making thing even more complex so it is a hopeless battle agains the security leaks that make those products look like a sieve. Shouldn't rush things if ends up this badly that frequent and important and urgent patches are required.
Also no! Not only security fixes and new standards come, you are mistaken quite a bit. There are no separate updates for features and security. I checked. New features come bundled on how to do things differently, adding things as well. Bookmarks or whatnot - welded together with important stuff -, I do not care as I mentioned the product in features is good already and never missed those yet I am bugged against my will to get those too (good enough only means on the surface of course, not in security, in security it seems to be hopelessly and constantly below the minimum since urgent, immediate, install right away or you doom kind of messages come from here and there). Sometimes they even repackage, redesign, put elsewhere existing and frequently used things breaking the user flow again, making its usage more difficult for a time being while you get used to it (if you can, not always) just to ruin it yet again later. It is good it is free for the end user, for that sloppy quality breaking the usage and requiring frequent fixes no amount of money should be given. You woldn't if it was a car or a tool for the physical world.
> But new standards in every 2 weeks? You are kidding, right?!
There are hundreds of changes to standards in various stages. And bugs happen in those implementations.
In fact, standards related changes land in browsers source trees _far_ more often than every two weeks, that's just the iterative development cycle that they package these changes (_and security changes_) into.
(this is a very bad trend in the software industry, pushing updates on the user like if the software had the same importance to the user like it is for its developers, if the life's purpose for the user was to keep it the most updated and satisfy the software packages' needs, no, not at all, for users it is a tool not the center of admiration that want to nurse and cherish. it is a bad trend but that is not an excuse to do bad as well but a reason to make it better please)
Rememeber! : https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtwnnQLUUAI9O7g?format=jpg&name=...