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I only have 10 addons installed but many of them they stop working on every update. Since the updates to not bring any new noticeable features but break them I don't want any updates anymore.

I could lock firefox, but of course I still want security updates. I want to "pin" it to 7.* or preferably downgrade to 6.*. How do I do that without mozilla.debian.net? Will Old versions still get security fixes?

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  • Maybe it's possible to find alternative, updated, addons to use with the latest Firefox version.
    – N.N.
    Sep 30, 2011 at 10:47
  • Mozilla still maintains the 3.6 branch, with the latest version being 3.6.23. As for how to downgrade or install another version, it's been covered before, just use the search function. Sep 30, 2011 at 17:58

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Will Old versions still get security fixes?

No, not right now at least. Firefox 7 is the security update to Firefox 6, etc.

I want to "pin" it to 7.* or preferably downgrade to 6.*.

That's not a good idea for those versions in particular, since (as noted above) you won't get security updates.

Good news, though -- Mozilla's currently fleshing out a plan for "extended support releases" which will address this use-case. There's a proposal posted on the Mozilla wiki.

For now, if you want to lock onto a specific version, 3.6.* is probably your safest bet (as noted in comments above), since that branch is still receiving security updates.

Alternately, if Add-on breakage is your main problem, you can try using the Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension, which will force your add-ons to be treated as compatible, even if they haven't been explicitly marked as such. In rare cases, forced compatibility can cause add-ons not to work properly, but generally it makes them work fine in new versions.

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First you are attributing the Addons incompatible problem with Firefox instead of the true source of the problems, the Addons Developers. It is they who need to be compatible with the newer version for it to work. In my case, Firebug, Web Developer and Colorzilla need to work to be compatible with the newer version before it comes out, that is why it enters nightly, alpha, beta, rc stages. So it gives a change to the addon developers to have their work ready for the newer version.

But since this is not really a problem with the addon developers or the users that use them. It is a problem with time. Before this whole new release cycle. Devs had more time to work on their addons. With the new one their almost 8-9 month cycle went rapidly to a 2 week to 6 weeks time cycle. Very little for a dev.

So what has Mozilla proposed?

By default, starting from Firefox 8, addons will be assumed compatible with the latest firefox enhanced version of the addon manager until proven otherwise, either by a check to see if the addon gives an error (by user) or by the dev. This way if a particular addon has worked in all Firefox, the user has a chance to say that he/she would like the addon to still be enable in the latest firefox.

This helps in 2 points:

Point 1 - User can use an "old" addon in a new release. Removing the "What the hell do you mean is incompatible" face of the user.

Point 2 - Developer has time for more features and compatibility since a version change in Firefox will not (in most cases) affect the compatible nature of the addon and this way, giving the developer a bigger time frame. Bigger time frame = happier developer = haz cheezeburger

Lastly. I want to install version 6.

Ok the command aptitude has an option -t to tell which version of a package you wish to install. it also has an option for forbid-version to disable an upgrade to a particular package. Anyway there are a couple of more that you could see with aptitude --help

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  • re. the aptitude suggestion, won't the user still be offered an upgrade by the Update Manager?
    – user25656
    Jan 11, 2012 at 11:12
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I've just done the same for 8.0 version, after a feature was removed from 9.0.

Here is easy way: Open Synaptic and query 'firefox' then select 'Package > Force Version...' from the menu. Dialog will pop and you can select from available versions. Which versions is available also depends on your Firefox repository. After that version is locked

Synaptic

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