Also tomorrow [24 April], Mozilla will push Firefox 3.6 into retirement. The company has been dunning users with pleas to upgrade for weeks, and will take the unusual step of automatically upgrading version 3.6 to Firefox 12 after the latter's release.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226463/Firefox_skirts_Windows_security_feature_to_make_silent_updates_happen

Firefox kills off favicon in URL bar
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/24/firefox-is-killing-off-the-favicon/

Firefox 12:  Now available via the internal updater.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/12.0/releasenotes/

What’s New

1) FF 12 adds a new Mozilla Maintenance Service (currently set to Manual start --- meaning it doesn't automatically start-up with Windows, but can be invoked as needed).   

"Firefox skips [the] UAC [prompt on Vista and Windows 7] by substituting a Mozilla-created Windows service for the traditional installation process... The final component of silent updating, responsible for launching and completing the update entirely in the background [similar to what Google's Chrome browser already does], will land in Firefox 13, scheduled to ship June 5, or Firefox 14, set to ship July 17".  

quoted from  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226463/Firefox_skirts_Windows_security_feature_to_make_silent_updates_happen

EDIT:   Use of this "background" service appears optional:   Under tools / options / the Advanced category / the Update tab, there is now a box to check to "Use a background service to install updates".

2) KeyScrambler users need to update to version 2.9.1.0 for compatibility.

The following was copied/pasted from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenance-service  :

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.

BB

re: your statement above that "Firefox kills off favicon in URL bar", the article you linked to indicates FF "killed off the age-old favicon in yesterday’s nightly build", which I believe is their terminology for their latest Beta version.   Indeed, the next sentence elaborates that "the changes are set to arrive in the release channel in mid-July" --- which would correspond to the release of FF 14.

I have installed FF 12 on two machines, and the icons/URL bar appears to be the same as they had been in version 11.

I've still got my favicons, too. Yup, if that's happening in July, that would be for a later version of FF.

I don't know whether anyone else might experience the same but Firefox 12 crashes frequently on my Dell Inspiron 1501, Win XP-SP 3 with AIS 7.0.1426.

Mona,

I have installed FF 12 on two systems, but haven't really used it much yet.  (My primary browser is IE at home; Chrome at work.)   Perhaps I can try it some more later.

Do the crashes occur "quickly" after starting FF?  Or only after surfing for a while?   Do you sense any patterns ? --- e.g., Does it crash after you visit a particular webpage?

ky331, after installing FF12 this morning (I didn't reboot the laptop, only FF restarted) it crashed on this website, Malwarebytes forums website and the website of a Belgian newspaper; each time a crash report was sent.  I'm still at the office but I let you know whether this happens again this evening (after a shut down and a restart of the laptop).

Hi Mona,

It might be good to report your issues to Mozilla. Perhaps others are having problems as well? I have found that their forums have been extremely helpful whenever I've had a question. Those guys know Firefox inside out and backwards!

http://forums.mozillazine.org/

From our friends at Bleeping Computer:

How to Disable Silent Updates in Firefox
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/disable-silent-updates-in-firefox/

Just to let you know I've been browsing the internet for more than an hour without any crashes so far. :emotion-2: