Updater

[Patrxgt]

It would be nice to have an updater instead of having to check out. if new version of Betterfox came out. You could fork ArkenFox's updater and edit it to check and pull new versions of user.js from this repo. It also would be a great opportunity to introduce user-overrides.js, so update wouldn't wipe all the user's edits.

Here's a simple batch script I wrote for updating the user.js file

@echo off
powershell invoke-webrequest -uri 'https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/raw/master/user.js' -outfile user.js
pause

I couldn't test so please let me know if it works

[unrealapex]

Here's a oneliner curl script if you are on Linux. It just overwrites user.js with the latest version of the script from the GitHub repository:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/master/user.js > "$(find ~/.mozilla/firefox/ -type d -name "*.default-release")"

Here's a simple batch script I wrote for updating the user.js file

@echo off
powershell invoke-webrequest -uri 'https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/raw/master/user.js' -outfile user.js
pause

I couldn't test so please let me know if it works

The script written in PowerShell

invoke-webrequest -uri "https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/raw/master/user.js" -outfile user.js
pause

[unrealapex]

Just an FYI, this does not update the script file, it just retrieves a new version. It would be better if the new file could be moved to the profiles directory automatically. It is C:\Users\<username>\Appdata\Roaming\Firefox\<profile-name>. In my Bash script, I found the profile directory with a wildcard and moved the file there.

[Patrxgt]

Problem with this method is, that it will remove all of my overrides. It could be nice, if your user.js could support user-overrides.js, like in ArkenFox's user.js

[unrealapex]

Good consideration. Using that idea, you could create an overrides file and append it to the user.js:

#!/bin/bash
# NOTE: this installs to the default profile directory
# update user.js
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/master/user.js > "$(find ~/.mozilla/firefox/ -type d -name "*.default-release")"
# append overrides to file
cat user-overrides.js >> "$(find ~/.mozilla/firefox/ -type d -name "*.default-release")"/user.js

[Patrxgt]

Great script! But I still think, that yokoffing should make an official solution to updating and overriding settings in separate file. It would make it way more user friendly and as far as I understand, this user.js is all about delivering privacy in the easiest to use package possible.

[yokoffing]

I've had the honor of meeting a handful of Betterfox users in real life. Do you know how many of them would know how to run a script to update their user.js?

Zero.

I'm aware that we have more advanced users of Betterfox, so an updater would be nice -- but it's also out of scope for the primary audience.

If someone creates a solution, I will happily integrate it and give them credit.

[unrealapex]

Having a shell script seems to be the best approach. As for the normies who don't know how to run a shell script, having a section in the Wiki would help.

Perhaps we should consolidate Arkenfox's user.js update script for a basis for ours? Some ways we could go about overrides in the user.js are either:

1. Having a separate file with overrides and appending that to the user.js file(proposed by me above)
2. Extracting user overrides from the old file and insert them into the new file(might be harder to extract)

What do you think is the better approach, or do you have something else in mind?

[HyperCriSiS]

Having a shell script seems to be the best approach. As for the normies who don't know how to run a shell script, having a section in the Wiki would help.

Perhaps we should consolidate Arkenfox's user.js update script for a basis for ours? Some ways we could go about overrides in the user.js are either:

1. Having a separate file with overrides and appending that to the user.js file(proposed by me above)

2. Extracting user overrides from the old file and insert them into the new file(might be harder to extract)

What do you think is the better approach, or do you have something else in mind?

Just came here to ask the same. I think this would be the best solution with also the least of work?
I was using the Arkenfox user.js and had many issues. Glad I found this one here. Would be awesome to also have the updater 😀

[Patrxgt]

I've had the honor of meeting a handful of Betterfox users in real life. Do you know how many of them would know how to run a script to update their user.js?

Zero.

Emm, no? Double click script is easier than modifying user.js, to copy user's overrides.

[Finoderi]

There is no need to over-engineer an update process. Replacing the user.js and copying/pasting overrides is easy and simple enough already.