Enable the Update Badge in Firefox

As you might be knowing, Mozilla Firefox can update itself automatically. If you didn't change the default settings when you installed it, it will be configured to check for updates periodically and install them, so you will always have an up-to-date browser. However, there is no clear indication that an update is available for Firefox until you restart it, so Mozilla has finally added a special badge to indicate that updates are available for Firefox. The update badge is disabled by default. Here is how to enable it.

Previously, to see if updates were available for Firefox, you needed to open the About dialog. In Firefox 36, which is still in the Nightly branch, Mozilla added a special update badge. It is a tiny icon which appears on the Hamburger menu button as a red or green star.
Firefox Update Badge
A red star icon is used to indicate a browser update, and a green icon is for plugin updates.
To enable the update badge icon, which is disabled by default, you need to do the following:

  1. Open a new tab and enter the following text in the address bar:
    about:config

    Confirm that you will be careful if a warning message appears for you.

  2. Enter the following text in the filter box:
    app.update.badge
  3. You will see the app.update.badge parameter. Just set it to true to enable the update badge.

When an update arrives the next time, a star icon will appear on the menu button's icon. You can click on the menu button to restart the browser and apply the update.

That's it.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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