[serf]

it happens pretty routinely to me on computers that idle with browsers for long periods.

example : a cctv kiosk I have just sits on a URL all day.

It updates silently and breaks the browser sometimes a few times a month, facilitating remote administration to reset.

The other lovely behavior is when after an update the tab to show update notes is prioritized upon browser auto-restart -- thus covering up the cctv kiosk tab with something advertising firefox changes.

Firefox is getting harder to love, (thankfully?) so is the competition in most cases.

[derefr]

I'm surprised there isn't a browser-ish application purpose-built to be used as a webview of a single site, with no distractions, that does the right thing when self-updating (= wait for a scheduled maintenance window, restart, then reload everything exactly as it was.) This app would be to browsers, as Windows IoT Core (nee Windows Embedded) is to regular Windows: the thing you run on a kiosk to minimize the need for interactive administration and maximize useful uptime.

I mean, you can kind of use Electron for this, but it's not designed to be used this way (i.e. to be used un-customized as a long-running service with hot updates.) It's designed as an SDK for developers to produce apps with, not as an app in-and-of itself.

https://fluidapp.com/ exists, but it's not multiplatform, and it still doesn't address the needs of the embedded market either.

[nitrogen]

Firefox has a kiosk mode; I wonder if they didn't consider the effect of updates on kiosk mode.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-enterprise-kios...