How to get rid of pesky, queued Firefox updates, post-downgrade, that would reverse the downgrade

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1

I am at wit’s end! On the verge of booting out Firefox! However, the pesky problem at hand only affects the one of my desktop computers, so I trust that there HAS to be a solution. I will explain what I have tried, in stages, and what seems to have worked on the one PC…

Firstly, I tried to “downgrade” (from version 29 to version 28) in Yast, but there was no way I could find to do that (I went to Software Management, entered “mozilla” in the view/ search field, and when the Mozilla package came up, I clicked on the “Version” tab below, hoping to find a way to boot version 29 out… it appears in the Main Update OSS and in the Update Non-OSS repos… but this wasn’t possible). I finally found a solution whereby one simply force-installs a previous version, like so (for version 28):

zypper install --oldpackage MozillaFirefox-28.0-17.1.x86_64

But the “bug” kept bugging me, wanting me to upgrade Firefox. Then I learned that a way to kill this urge was the following… in about:config, set to the value “false” the following entries:

app.update.auto
app.update.enabled, and
app.update.silent

In Firefox itself, I went to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Update and UNTICKED the Search Engines box (until recently, one could untick ALL updates, before Firefox went WUSSIFIED).

This procedure has worked on my Linux-only machine, but on my dual-boot machine, the “bug” comes back to bug me almost the second after I force-install the downgrade. Anybody got a good idea for how to get rid of that pesky, queued Firefox update that refuses to accept that a No! is a No!?

(I uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of repos in connection with uninstalling and reinstalling VLC Player, but I can’ recall if I did this only on the dual-boot machine, or on both of them.)

Thanks!

2

I found the solution to my problem, directly from Mozilla. It turns out that one can download an Add-on that allows one to tweak the appearance of Firefox, including getting the “old” look of version 28 back. Anyone who, like me, is dissatisfied with the MENU-LESS/ STERILE look of Firefox 29.0 can go here and install the Add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/).

Instructions - with pics - for how to tweak Firefox’s look are here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-make-new-firefox-look-like-old-firefox#w_use-the-customize-screen-to-drag-things-around-turn-on-extra-toolbars-and-use-small-icons.

I haven’t so far monkeyed with the components that one can +/- to the customizable look, all I have so far done was to get my Menu toolbar back, which was my main aim, and I must say that I am one happy camper about that! It is good that Firefox is now customizable, as it can please even cranky types like me! : -)

isusogdus

ps: The three app.update parameters as mentioned earlier are supposed to prevent future updates, if all set to “false”, according to the Mozilla moderator (though this wasn’t working for me before, at least not on this dual-boot machine!).

3

On 05/07/2014 06:56 PM, isusogdus wrote:
>
> I found the solution to my problem, directly from Mozilla. It turns out
> that one can download an Add-on that allows one to tweak the appearance
> of Firefox, including getting the “old” look of version 28 back. Anyone
> who, like me, is dissatisfied with the MENU-LESS/ STERILE look of
> Firefox 29.0 can go here and install the Add-on
> (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/).

http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php?t=497744

:slight_smile:

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