I'm trying to prevent Firefox from updating in the middle of the work day. If I try to open a new tab I get "Firefox Restart Required". One of my always open tab is a Citrix connection back to a work server, and a restart tears down all those types of secure MFA sessions.

One very insecure workaround is I went to Software & Updates and set the check update to "Never" and when there are security updates I only download and will update when i remember to do so.

This is what Windows used to do many years ago, when you had to restart the OS at inconvenient times. So they are forcing us to restart the browser to keep secure, but folks like me are forced to manually update.

Is there a way to disable the "Firefox Restart Required" without disabling all security updates?

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3 Answers

One Risky Solution

Firefox restart is only required when Firefox was updated to a newer version while Firefox was running. Since you run Firefox all the time, one solution is not to update Firefox.

You can set up Ubuntu to never update Firefox. Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and enter:

sudo apt-mark hold firefox

This will let the update system know not to update Firefox. If Firefox is not updated it will not ask you to restart Firefox.

The Risk

One of my always open tab is a Citrix connection back to a work server, and a restart tears down all those types of secure MFA sessions.

This is my concern. When you run an older and unpatched version of Firefox you run the risk of throwing the security of your Citrix connection out of the window. For example, a targeted attack on your workplace may start from your computer. A hacker may be able to access your work server via your open Citrix connection.

Once you login to your workplace's Citrix web server using the multi-factor authentication, Firefox creates a "token", a random string of letters and numbers. As long as you are logged into the Citrix account the same token is used to verify your authenticity.

Since you don't usually log out, a hacker just needs to get hold of the token to get access to your workplace server.

Good Practice

• Keep your Ubuntu desktop fully updated (including Firefox)
• Do not keep the Citrix connection open when you are not actively working on it.
• Close Firefox after using the Citrix connection.
• Log out of your Ubuntu account at the end of the day.

Hope this helps

2

As the Restart Required text appears, the software is already installed, having replaced components; at times attempting to USE them too (=> crashing!).

Remedy for next time:

• Hit the Super key (Windoz-key),
• type Updates, click on Software & Updates
• Select the Updates tab
• Change ALL options that says "Install" to possibly DOWNLOAD the updates.

(I have these set to Display immediately and similar)

With this YOU decide when to actually install, be it five minutes later, or the day after.
(launch sudo apt upgrade from Bash/Terminal to actually install available updates)

Generally the risk doing it like this shouldn't be very high,
unless you have very high-risk behavior on the net.

4

Stop using Citrix in your browser ?

There's a raft of Citrix/ICA client applications which should login in the same way, but will appear as a separate application.

Depending on the server, you may need the older Citrix Receiver or the newer Citrix Workspace app.

Newer (2022) - Workspace

Older (2018) - Receiver

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