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[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 179 points 1 week ago

that forced restart is probably going to be a huge win for our rolling release brothers and sisters.

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 45 points 1 week ago

I believe, Firefox bugfix releases get rolled out pretty quickly on most non-rolling distros, too, so I don't think it's a terribly different experience, unless you're on a distro with Firefox ESR, like e.g. Debian.

[-] AugustWest@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Can you expand on this a little for a new guy who is considering a switch from Mint to Debian?

In my understanding Firefox ESR is like a stable, longstanding version that doesn’t get frequent little updates but still gets occasional large updates. (Like 1.0, 1.1, etc. rather than 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, etc.)

Is there a measurable difference in the user experience and or security of ESR?

And is Debian actually restricted to ESR?

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago

Sure. Here's a high-level page which I'll be kind of going off of: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/choosing-firefox-update-channel

But basically, Firefox ESR ("Extended Support Release") means that you still get security fixes in a timely manner, but feature updates are delayed. Firefox normally gets feature updates every 4 weeks, whereas ESR averages one (larger) feature update per year. You might know such a model as LTS ("Long-Term Support") release from other software.

Essentially, the current 'normal' Firefox version is 141.0, whereas the ESR version is 128.13.0.
Mozilla does maintain a separate changelog for ESR, but basically it's as if from 129.0 onwards, you only included the "Fixed", none of the "New" or "Changed" stuff.

The next ESR will be based off of Firefox 140, as can be seen in their release calendar, so this change that OP praises here will not make it into ESR for another year or so.

And then you gotta also pay the Debian toll, which is that they won't upgrade to the newest ESR right away either. 😅
Mozilla actually still maintains the Firefox ESR based on version 115, which is about to be discontinued with the new ESR major release.
Debian will typically maintain the ESR even beyond that (Firefox is open-source, so they can retrofit patches themselves), because they have an even longer support lifecycle for their OS release. But I believe, if you always upgrade to the newest Debian release as they make them available, you should be covered by the Mozilla-supported ESR at all times.

If you do not want to pay the Debian toll (not just for Firefox, but any software where you care about new features), then Flatpaks are typically the solution of choice. It's a different way of installing software, which allows you to get the newest version, independent from what Debian is doing.

But back to the normal Debian experience. How does it affect the user experience for Firefox? Well, we've already covered that others may be happy about new features when you've gotta take solace in your disgustingly stable software.
These feature updates also include the newest support for web standards, so it's theoretically possible that a webpage doesn't work right in ESR. In practice, I don't think this happens very often, because webdevs can't use the newest web standards right away anyways. There's always gonna be users on old browsers or there's whole browsers which don't support the new stuff right away.

How does it affect security? Generally, ESR is secure. Occasionally, the feature updates might introduce security-relevant stuff, too, like when they switched to the multi-process architecture, that brought along much better isolation and you can't just retrofit that into ESR. But yeah, this isn't the norm. You shouldn't be particularly worried about security. You do get the normal patches in a timely manner.


Well, and to infodump a little more, you could also take a look at Linux Mint Debian Edition. It's Linux Mint, but instead of Ubuntu underneath, it's Debian underneath.
Ubuntu is actually itself based on Debian, so I've heard LMDE described as "What does basing it on Ubuntu even add? LMDE feels exactly the same as normal Linux Mint.".
Of course, if you're switching because you want to try something different, that would be counterproductive. 🫠

[-] AugustWest@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Thanks so much for the informative and detailed reply. That pretty much answers every question.

Thanks also for the tip about LMDE. I actually really like Mint, I’m only switching because it’s the only distro I’ve tried and I feel like I should shop around a bit. Going to Debian because while starting my journey I want to shop around with things that work, rather than having to learn how to tinker all at once just to get things running. But if I decide I need Mint back I’ll probably check out LMDE for the hell of it.

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[-] whosepoopisonmybutt@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don't know how the timing of each release is planned but the Firefox website gives instructions for using the repositories for esr, beta, nightly, or dev edition.

Using Debian as your distro doesn't lock you into firefox ESR.

[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago

Why? I already reboot daily because everything gets updated so much. (I'm into that)

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[-] AusatKeyboardPremi@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Why?

Does one reboot their entire system after updating Firefox on Linux?

I never do. I don’t even restart Firefox after updating, if it is already running.

[-] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 week ago

I never do. I don’t even restart Firefox after updating, if it is already running.

Clearly you don't use it often, firefox will force you to restart itself and refuse to render webpages.

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[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

On Linux:

  • an application's files can be updated while the application is running, and
  • there's an OS-wide updater (i.e. package manager) with which you can update most software, including Firefox. (You can also get Firefox with its built-in auto-updater, but most people prefer the OS-wide updater.)

Both of these are good things. But Firefox, with its relatively advanced multi-process architecture, had a problem here, because it could happen that its files got updated while it was running and then when it started a new process, this new process might be incompatible with the old processes, therefore unable to communicate correctly.

Their initial solution was to force you to quit Firefox and reopen it, when they detected that the files had changed and you did something in Firefox which might need a new process, so primarily when opening a new tab.

I'm guessing, they now implemented a way to launch the new process by still using the old files from before the update.

[-] 30p87@feddit.org 62 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

WHAT???? ALL OF THOSE FEATURES HAVE BEEN IN NIGHTLY FOR A MONTH AND I STILL ALWAYS RESTART IT OUT OF HABIT! IT'S LITERALLY PART OF MY ROUTINE AND NOW YOU TELL ME IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE ANYMORE?

[-] hazl 9 points 1 week ago

AND THE BEST PART IS THAT YOU STILL CAN RESTART IT IF YOU WANT TO! WELCOME TO THE FUTURE, LUCY!

[-] Zink@programming.dev 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

AND ADD THE OPTION TO REPLACE SPACEBAR HEATING!

https://xkcd.com/1172/

[-] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 46 points 1 week ago

Getting rid of that forced restart will at least help me personally stay more secure and get bug fixes faster

[-] v01dworks@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago

lol I was so confused by Firefox not needing to restart that I tried running update again and then closed it myself because I thought something went wrong

[-] hazl 28 points 1 week ago

Charlie's still using that gamer version of Opera though. With the fake key stroke sounds enabled.

[-] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Charlie is a simple creature.

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[-] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

Still does telemetry, and allows easy fingerprinting by default. Use Librewolf instead.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago

Or you can just opt out if you don't think Mozilla should have this data which is strictly about the browser and whether it's the default browser, and which in no way compromises any personal info.

Just because something uses telemetry doesn't mean it's used in a way that compromises your personal data.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook and many others do that, Mozilla/Firefox does not.

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[-] lime@feddit.nu 38 points 1 week ago

by the way some people talk here you'd think "telemetry" was a synonym to "satanism".

telemetry is not automatically evil.

[-] Zwiebel@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago

It would be ok if it was opt in

[-] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 1 week ago

since 99% of users never touch a single setting on their computers, being opt-in makes telemetry functionally useless.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago

Oh thank god. I've been getting crushed by memory sucking tabs.

[-] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 12 points 1 week ago

Laughs in automatic tab suspender

[-] cmhe@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Good to know that I am not the only one mistaking Cr1TiKaL aka MoistCr1TiKaL aka penguinz0 aka Charles Christopher White Jr. as Asmongold aka Zack Hoyt (the rightwing influencer).

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[-] glitchdx@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

..............

I miss the days when it was normal to just shut down the pc when you were done with it. Leaving things on all of the time isn't healthy.

[-] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago

When I finish what I want to do on my PC, I type “yay” enjoy text and pacmans going left to right, press enter some times, and type sudo pw some times.
After that I reboot to check, that I am not stuck in TTY and turn off after

[-] Aimeeloulm@feddit.uk 5 points 1 week ago

I always turn computer off when done, it never sleeps or hibernates, no need since I'm either using it or not, through been leaving it on 24/7 at moment due to wiping some hard drives which takes time, so it's working which is fine 😬

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... i was supposed to be restarting after updating Firefox???

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago

Just restarting Firefox, not the entire system.

Which doesn't really matter for 99.99% of users that are sane and only use a couple windows and tabs at a time. Saving things they aren't actively using anymore as bookmarks and using the browsing history for anything they closed previously but need again.

For the 0.01% of insane but vocal users that never close tabs and/or keep dozens of windows open, that's a big deal.

ah, then yeah I just have "restore previous tabs" selected and restart the app, no biggie

[-] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

Private windows are not restored.

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[-] communism@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

But also for normal users it's annoying as if you're in the middle of something like filling out a form, clicking onto the next page will tell you you need to restart your browser, and you lose your progress. So yeah, I'm happy about this change.

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[-] pemptago@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

I do this, but now I have 10k+ bookmarks, fairly organized, but the bookmark manager is trash. It is slow and getting slower. Also, searching history feels like '90's web search: hopeless if you don't remember exact keywords.

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[-] splendoruranium@infosec.pub 8 points 1 week ago

Oh, that is good news. Hurray!

[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

When was this? I just had to restart about a week ago

[-] exu@feditown.com 16 points 1 week ago

It's in the just released version 141

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 7 points 1 week ago

I had to restart today.

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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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