Yesterday, Software Updates noticed that there was an update to the kernel. (I have things set up so that it just alerts me about updated and doesn't actually do it.)
I let it install that but before doing the reboot, there are a couple of things I need to finish doing in Firefox... except that I can't. No tab will load any page, and no open tab will successfully refresh.
This used to be a sign that I'd updated the Firefox via its .deb, but not restarted Firefox - was there a silent Firefox snap update?
If I look at its Help / About, it's currently version "99.0.1, canonical-002 1.0".
If I look at ~/snap/firefox, I can only see
drwxr-xr-x 4 user user 4.0K Apr 21 16:46 1232
drwxr-xr-x 4 user user 4.0K Apr 21 16:46 common
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user 4 Apr 21 16:46 current -> 1232
so I would be guessing not - they'd be more than one version there, if there had been, wouldn't there?
But this is why I am seriously considering abandoning Ubuntu for Linux Mint a second time*: I really do not want Firefox updating without me saying 'Yes, do it now'.
(* The first time was over Unity and GNOME 3. Then Ubuntu MATE happened and I came back.)
No. There hasn't been an update.
As for snap updates, you can delay them for up to 60 days or so.
You can use my guide here to install the non snap version of firefox:
That method doesn't keep your open tabs etc unless you manually copy assorted files around, does it?
I was pleased (= would have been very very annoyed) if going from .deb to snap does keep them, but starting off with a deletion of the snap suggests to me that it won't work the other way.
I would be delighted to be wrong about this though!
I should have thought about this - because of the sandboxing, when a new version of the snap arrives, as Firefox version 100 just did, the old one just keeps working in a way that the .deb version doesn't after an new update is installed.
The downside is that there is no indication that there is a new snap version installed! The Software Updater just shows available .deb updates. Whether it's that or something else that does 'snap refresh', it's done completely invisibly to the user.
If, like me, you only close Firefox when you have to (reboots for kernel or other such updates / new Firefox updates) this means you can carry on using the old version long past the point where you could/should have started using the new one.
So I will now be doing 'snap changes' every day or so...
