Can firefox be setup to make profile backups before each update? I certainly wouldn't like having a surprise update to the degree of firefox 57 (which thankfully I was ready for) and then lose everything I had setup just because firefox updated.
On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 11:21 PM Dave Townsend <dtowns...@mozilla.com> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:20 PM Mike Hommey <m...@glandium.org> wrote: > >> On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 12:32:36PM -0700, Dave Townsend wrote: >> > In Firefox 65 we intend to ship two new features to help prevent user >> > frustration caused by using profiles created by newer versions of >> Firefox. >> > >> > Why >> > >> > Firefox stores all of its settings in the user’s profile and unless >> certain >> > command line arguments are used Firefox always launches with the same >> > profile. Periodically as Firefox upgrades it makes changes to the >> settings >> > that can render the profile unusable by earlier versions of Firefox. >> This >> > can cause anything from certain features of Firefox being broken after a >> > downgrade to Firefox crashing on startup. >> > >> > To protect against this two new features will be landing in Nightly >> soon. >> > >> > Dedicated Profiles Per Install >> > >> > A common cause of users switching between different versions of Firefox >> is >> > having Firefox installed multiple times. This most often happens when >> users >> > have different channels installed at the same time like ESR and >> Release. It >> > is a common request to be able to run the different installs at the same >> > time. In Firefox 35 this was made possible for the developer edition by >> > giving it a dedicated profile. The new dedicated profiles per install >> > feature extends this and will give every install of Firefox on the >> computer >> > a dedicated profile by default. >> > >> > Users will be able to run different installs of Firefox simultaneously. >> > Each will use a different profile for its settings. Upgrading an >> install of >> > Firefox will keep it using the same settings. >> > >> > We’re tracking work on this feature in bug 1474285. >> > >> > Profile Downgrade Protection >> > >> > For cases where users manually downgrade an install of Firefox or >> attempt >> > to forcefully use an older version of Firefox with a newer profile the >> > profile downgrade protection feature will now tell the user that the >> > profile is too new to use with this Firefox giving them the option to >> > create a new profile to use or to quit. >> > >> > We’re tracking work on this feature in bug 1455707. >> > >> > Developer Implications >> > >> > As developers it is quite common to switch between different builds for >> > example when testing different built versions of Firefox and doing >> > regression testing. To support these use-cases a new command line >> argument >> > “--allow-downgrade” will allow skipping the downgrade protection. >> > >> > Conclusions >> > >> > While some users may be impacted by this change we believe that most >> users >> > will be unaffected and those that are will see less problems caused by >> > downgrades than previously. This will give us the ability to ignore the >> > possibility of downgrades when implementing new features and fixing bugs >> > going forwards. Being able to make the assumption that this code works >> as >> > designed will allow us flexibility in other changes downstream. >> >> Does this also mean we can actively remove old data from profiles after >> this work lands? My profile is very old, and there is a non-negligible >> amount of data that has accumulated that's just leftover from old data >> formats that have changed and are now stored in different files. We've >> never cleaned those up presumably to support downgrades. It seems to me >> with downgrades officially being unsupported, we should have an active >> policy of removing old profile data when we migrate to new formats. >> > > I certainly think so. What's more we can be more proactive about not > leaving that stuff around going forwards. > _______________________________________________ > firefox-dev mailing list > firefox-...@mozilla.org > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/firefox-dev > _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
