Sunday, April 17, 2005

Firefox update - 1.02 to 1.03

3:06AM
oh my, here we go again. The little icon at the top of Firefox is telling me there is a new critical update. I just barely "fixed" things broken from the last installation, which were not Firefox bugs per se, but nonetheless were related to updating from 1.01 to 1.02 (1.01 had its share of update problems as well, but they were in large part created by me assuming that an update would work the same way MS updates work). This time I didn't click the update icon (because it will start installation immediately upon finishing the download), instead downloaded 1.03 from the Mozilla/Firefox site, but haven't installed it yet.

I am reading the "sticky" in the Firefox support forum and the wording suggests that they have finally fixed the "update" to actually be what I consider an update- that is, it might be able to be installed over the 1.02 version. Do I risk it? hmmm... I don't see anyone posting yet that they have done anything other than a "clean install".

I really like Firefox and prefer it- update problems and all -over any other; it does suit the way I use the internet (as opposed to IE) without any tweaks, and customized, it rocks. BUT I really dislike retweaking everything (toolbars, extensions etc) and troubleshooting things with every update and the "clean install" is a pain in the tokhes (because I have to look up every detail each time; my memory refuses to hold this information). I think I will wait to install for Sunday later.. after some sleep, when my head is fresh and ready to spend the time to solve any potential problems- And after a lot more people have installed the update.
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Noon:
After sleep and reading more in the Firefox forum including this thread it seems some folks have installed by clicking the update arrow at the top of Firefox with zero problems, some have had multiple problems, and some are playing it cautious with a clean install. I think I will go the cautious route by backing up my profile to another location, uninstalling 1.02, cleaning the registry, then installing 1.03 and copying the profile to the new installation. This really seems tedious to do, but twice scalded with numerous hours spent fixing things makes me even more cautious than previously. I would rather spend one afternoon than several days. After I finish a few other things I will play with this. If it goes quick and painless, I will append this post later.

updated info 4/18/05: I still haven't installed 1.03; Most seem to have installed, even over the top of 1.02, with zero problems, but the scope of the various real* problems that some are having don't sound like things I am up to dealing with yet. I see in my stats that some folks have surfed in from a search for Firefox issues. I will provide more information when I install 1.03, which will be when I am finished reading the problems and fixes or fed up with reading. ;-)
*real versus forgetting to reset permissions to firewalls, create or save profiles, etc. etc. etc.

edited info 4/26/05: I forgot to update this post, but on the 19th I upgraded Firefox using the cautious, "clean install" method (see this forum post for my exact steps or the link in the main body of the post) without cleaning the registry this time. I have zero problems to report. In reading the support forums, I have noticed that many have been having "connection refused" and "page not found" problems, but in solving what I thought were the 1.02 issues (probably not specifically 1.02 per se), I installed a nice piece of software called Treewalk which is an alternative to using Domain Name Servers set by an ISP or even choosing my own. Since installing Treewalk, I have had no further problems with those issues either.

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