What is the Mozilla Maintenance Service?

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Firefox now installs an optional service called the Mozilla Maintenance Service. This service allows Firefox to install updates without requiring you to click yes in the Windows User Account Control (UAC) dialog.

Note: The article only applies to Windows.

Note: This applies to the latest Firefox version which can be downloaded from mozilla.org/firefox.
No UAC

How does the Mozilla Maintenance Service work?

Once Firefox has downloaded an update, the Mozilla Maintenance Service gets permission from Windows to allow the update to be applied without requiring you to click yes in the Windows User Account Control (UAC) dialog. Until that time, the service doesn't run so it doesn't use any computer resources. And once the update process begins, the service quits.
Note: Even though Windows XP doesn't include the UAC dialog, the Mozilla Maintenance Service is installed so that we can further streamline the update process in the future.

Want more technical details? Check out the Mozilla wiki.

Disabling the Mozilla Maintenance Service

If you'd like to be prompted to authorize Firefox updates, you can disable the Mozilla Maintenance Service.

  1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options
  2. Click the Advanced panel.
  3. Click the Update tab. The update options are displayed.
  4. Uncheck the box next to Use a background service to install updates.
  5. Click OK to close the Options window.
Note: You can also uninstall the Mozilla Maintenance Service from the Windows Control Panel: