In a move that closely resembles Google Chrome, Mozilla has decided to implement a silent update feature within their Firefox internet browser. Unlike Chrome, however, users will have the option to turn silent updating off.
Rather than notifying the user and requiring confirmation each time a Firefox update is available, all security updates and most major browser updates will load in the background if silent updating is enabled. The user will still see a progress bar when implementation of the feature begins, but the intent is to eventually make the updates unnoticeable.
Mozilla claims that they are responding to customers who have complained that frequent updates to Firefox are annoying and disruptive.
"I think the majority of users would prefer an application that doesn't bother them with what they view as little details, where a little detail is a minor update," said Alex Faaborg, a principal designer on Firefox. "We get a lot of complaints that Firefox updates too often, people can't see the difference with the new version (it was actually a security patch), that we change our mind too much and should just ship one version (it was actually a security patch), etc."
This is different reasoning from what Google used in explaining why Chrome’s silent update system is not an option for users. Google defends the lack of user control over the feature because, “Taking updates out of the hands of users keeps them safer”.
While browser security is definitely important, should users have a choice as to when they’d like to update to the latest version of the software they use?
I, personally, don’t like silent updating because I’ve experienced quite a lot of issues with updates in the past. I prefer to receive at least some kind of notification so that if I have a problem I know it was likely the update that was to blame. I’ll admit that I sometimes do get irritated with the frequency of Firefox updates, but I’d rather know about them than have them run undetected.
Hopefully, Mozilla will keep silent updates an option for users like me.
