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istrasci
New member
Status: New idea

Please do not block my browsing session just to force me to restart!  Let me restart when I want to.  For security reasons, I'm almost always browsing in Private Mode, and as such, logins and passwords are not saved.  So when I'm forced to restart because of an update, I have to save my current tab session, reopen them after FF has restarted, and re-login to every site I was using—many of which require 2FA, so it's extra annoying.

This is bad UX!  Put a notification, or even a whole separate tab telling me I need to restart.  But don't block out everything I was doing.  Even Windows doesn't do this...

75 Comments
nozerror
New member

agree, there should be a better option to "save" your private browsing session rather than to just select all tabs and bookmark them - which I do when update notification becomes really annoying and I have time, however, re-opening these bookmarked tabs is similarly annoying.

I'm using private mode pretty much all the time and when there is an update, then firefox usually waits for couple of days, and then forces restart, losing all opened tabs. same happens when there is memory overload on linux (debian) and firefox crashes due to it - not able to restore tabs, only the most recent ones which I remember.

I see 2 options to solve it: allow firefox to have a selection for users in private mode to save the session either once or constantly.

NoLifeDGenerate
New member

Bad enough it updates itself without asking. Fine. STOP expecting me to restart it for no reason. It's working fine. It'll restart when the PC does. Until then, leave me the hell alone. You have no business breaking tabs and forcing a restart.

KevinBrosnan
Employee
Employee

This happens when either there are multiple users or profiles running Firefox at the same time on a computer or more commonly the Linux distro has updated Firefox while Firefox is running.

When this happens Firefox's options are; randomly crash because API call does not match, detect the API incompatibility and prompt the user to do a clean restart, or spend a monumental amount of engineering work to maintain API compatibility while running mixed Gecko versions.

If you are using Linux then using the Mozilla build in /opt, the Snap or Flatpack versions will avoid the distro updating Firefox out from underneath it.

idoc
Making moves

I don't know if I'm the only one to think so.

In my opinion Mozilla becomes like Microsoft which considers that the users of their programs only have to pay and close their mouths.

I know that Firefox is free but then why do we constantly receive emails asking for donations?

siliconHuntsman
New member

Adding my comments, the forced update has been irritating me for a long time, still today it crossed the line. I made Ubuntu update yesterday and recycled power. Moment ago, freshly run Firefox said that it needs a restart itself not allowing me to open a new browser window effectively terminating my purchase process and payment session. This is not trustful behavior of application. There needs to be an option to bypass that forced restart and no, I do not have option in my Firefox and disable it.

Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hey all! In case you're interested, a Product Manager from the Firefox Desktop team is currently leading a discussion about private windows here: Private Windows on Firefox 

This is a great chance to connect with our product team and play a role in improving this feature, so feel free to join the conversation 😃

hrebicek
New member

Forced restarts, usually at the worst possible moment, are not only bad, they are insane, unless you really really want to drive users to other browsers. I use a lot of private windows for various reasons - and they do not recover, so I have to somehow start backing up links if I want to continue using the browser. I would welcome updates - if I could restart when I want i.e. not when I am busy. I do it all the time with package updates in my linux distribution - I start the update when I go for a lunch or something. Sneaky background updates, which cannot be turned off, are not necessary at all - give us the option to turn it off and do the update at the time when we want.

For Mike's love stop this insanity !! I use Firefox from its inception, with satisfaction, but his is driving me away.

MartinH

hrebicek
New member

Forced restarts, usually at the worst possible moment, are not only bad, they are insane, unless you really want to drive users to other browsers. I use a lot of private windows for various reasons - and they do not recover, so I have to somehow start backing up links if I want to continue using the browser. I would welcome updates - if I could restart when I want i.e. not when I am busy. I do it all the time with package updates in my linux distribution - I start the update when I go for a lunch or something. Sneaky background updates, which cannot be turned off, are not necessary at all - give us the option to turn it off and do the update at the time when we want.

For Mike's love stop this insanity !! I use Firefox from its inception, with satisfaction, but his is driving me away.

MartinH

osyalia
New member

Please STOP forcing browser restart to update!

My working process run in real-time environment, and I cannot afford restarting all working tabs just because you lot want an update immediately. On restart I have to log in on several interfaces again, reload  backups, and do lots of extra staff just because you wanted an immediate update!

I can restart browser by myself at the end of the day, thank you very much.

Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

On the Firefox preferences page, under the Updates section, you should have the option to change your setting to allow Firefox to 'Check for updates but let you choose to install them'