How to Disable Automatic Updates in Firefox?

Whenever we install any web browser it’s by default setting enables the automatic updates of the software in the system. Similarly, Firefox also by default enables the automatic updates. If you want to disable automatic updates in Firefox. This tutorial is for you.

When the automatic update is enabled, then whenever a new version of the software is available it starts updating without the consent of the user. No doubt they can consume a considerable amount of your data. Sometimes updating of software may slow down your system. In this section, we will discuss two methods of disabling the automatic updates in Firefox.

1. Using Firefox Preferences Page
2. Using prefs.js File

Steps to Disable Automatic Updates in Firewall:

Method 1

Using Firefox Preferences Page

Step 1: Launch your Firefox web browser and click on the menu button present at the top right corner of the browser window. From the displayed menu click on Options.

Step 2: A new tab ‘Options’ will get opened in your Firefox window. At the left side, you have an index where you have to click on General.

Step 3: In General, you have a Firefox Updates section where you can see a radio button that enables Firefox to check for updates, but before starting update it will ask you to decide whether to install the update or not. Click that radio button and in this way, you disable the automatic update in Firefox.

Method 2

Using prefs.js File

The prefs.js file a file that stores user settings of Firefox web browser.

Step 1: In the Windows search box type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\ as you can see in the image below and from the search result click on the %APPDATA%\Mozilla\ File Folder.

Step 2: The above step traces the path Users> Username> AppData>Roaming>Mozilla. In the Mozilla, folder open the folder Firefox.

Step 3: In the Firefox folder click on the Profiles folder.

Step 4: In the Profiles folder you can find a .default folder double click on it to open it.

Step 5: In the .default folder search for the file prefs.js.

Step 6: Open the file prefs.js with notepad.

Step 7: Now, in the prefs notepad search for user_pref(“app.update.enabled”, true). If you find it then change true in the above command to false. If you don’t find any command as above then add user_pref(“app.update.enabled”, false) to the notepad and save the notepad with this change.

In this way, you disabled the automatic update in Firefox using prefs.js file.

So, these are the steps to disable automatic update in Firefox. Hope the content is useful. Keep reading.