Mozilla Software → Firefox updated itself w/o permission!

I was using Firefox, closed it and opened it later like I usually do, and all of a sudden it all looked different. I checked the about button and they just updated me to 33.0. It didn't even ask me if it could upgrade! I have my settings to never check for update. I hate this new version. Thing I hate the most is that I can't manually go into Private browsing mode which goes in private on the same page, not in a new window. I hate that! Why did Firefox do this? I didn't even see anything on my screen saying "installing". I'm on Old versions of firefox, but I don't know which version I last had. Is there a way to find out a history log of versions I've had? I'm installing all kinds of different versions trying to find the right one. Headache!

 
If you go back to 28 or earlier, most of the new look will either retreat, or can be configured to do so.

FF 29+ forces the new look ( aka the dreaded Australis UI ), and does not let you choose the old one.

Cannot comment on the private browsing feature as I do not use it.

You could instead add the CTR extension to be able to change the look back, OR drop FireFox and try PaleMoon, which looks much like your older FF anyway.

Same thing happened to me. My favorite version is FF 18, which is still on my laptop, but my desktop updated itself with the same unchecked "check for update". I haven't reverted back as I am going to wipe my hard drive (desktop) and start over again (and make sure 18 does NOT update itself).

I think you may have the Mozilla Maintenance service enabled.

Better yet, I uninstalled that service.

You may disable internal automatic updates since Mozilla is pushing out releases faster than we can keep track of. Disabling the service does not expose you to any added security risk.

This explains the maintenance service which has been cited many times.

»support.mozilla.org/en-U ··· -service

I just installed Fx 31.2 ESR on Win 10 Preview and I chose to do a Custom install. That gave me the option to NOT even install the Maintenance service. ALWAYS choose custom install for any software.

I installed like 4 or 5 different versions. I found ver. 19 to be the last with the Private mode I like and the older UI style. The problem now is Ghostery says it's not compatible with this version. How can that be? I had Ghostery prior to Mozilla upgrading me to 33. And I had an old version of FF from Dec. 2012 and 19 is from 2013. Doesn't make sense! On my other computer I have ver. 14 which is compatible with Ghostery. WTH?

> I think you may have the Mozilla Maintenance service enabled.

I have never had nor used the Mozilla Maintenance service, & I am not certain, but it has never been shown (to me) that use of MMS in any way affects whether an update is "automatically" installed when you have specifically set FF to not update automatically. (And I may be wrong on that.)

In any case, earlier versions (being talked about here) never even had MMS so that would not be the issue.

Now FF certainly (did) have a bug (& is still quirky, even with the fix, IMO, at that) in that If you “check” for updates using Firefox > About Firefox and an update is available, it will be downloaded and the next time you launch Firefox it will be applied.

All versions prior to FF29 are affected by that.

In addition there are other ways that FF could unexpectedly update (like if you use multiple Profiles, each Profile must be set to not automatically update...).

said by mad :

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I found ver. 19 to be the last with the Private mode I like and the older UI style. The problem now is Ghostery says it's not compatible with this version. How can that be?

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That just means that the current version of Ghostery is not compatible with the version of Firefox you are running. For Firefox 19, you need an older version of Ghostery.

Version 5.4.1 works with Firefox 21.0 and later
Version 5.0.6 works with Firefox 19.0 and later <==
Version 2.9.6 works with Firefox 6.0 and later
Version 2.7.2 works with Firefox 3.5 and later

The old versions still update. I have Ghostery 2.7.2 installed on Firefox 3.6.28 and the last library update is Nov 3, 2014.

You can get them here:

»addons.mozilla.org/en-US ··· /?page=1

Better yet--never install it in the first place.

Interestingly the FF installer hasn't tried to re-install it since I removed the service long ago.

ET no phone home

If you do pave over upgrades of Fx then it wouldn't try to re-install since you are not doing a "clean", brand new install. I was asked about installing it (or not) because I did a brand new, clean virgin install of Fx 31.2 ESR on Win 10 Preview.

(Maybe I should always do virgin installs instead of the usual pave over upgrades as I do NOT get that little tiny (to me irritating) box to reply in any more! I'm getting the regular reply box now which I like because I didn't like having to click yet again to get the regular reply box).

 
I have done several installs of FF in exactly that manner, after discovering that it was possible to untick that box.

Previous to that, I would uninstall the Moz Maint service after installing FF, as I had done similarly for the updaters for some other apps.

Sometimes, if you cannot uninstall an updater, you can instead tell the task not to load on Windows boot (using MS Config or similar, and unticking the task's name).

I've been using version 18 because, like you, I hate that new UI they now have.