LibreWolf WinUpdater

by ltGuillaume: Codeberg | GitHub | Buy me a beer 🍺

An attempt to make updating LibreWolf for Windows much easier.

Getting started

LibreWolf Setup

• When installing LibreWolf, the official installer will show an option to install LibreWolf WinUpdater. On first run, it will copy itself to %AppData%\LibreWolf\WinUpdater to be able to update itself without administrator privileges.
• Alternatively, you can download and extract the latest LibreWolf-WinUpdater_x.x.x.zip, then run LibreWolf-WinUpdater.exe to check for an update. If one is available, it will be downloaded immediately.

LibreWolf Portable

• If you want to run the portable version of LibreWolf, download and extract librewolf-xxx.x.x-windows-x86_64-portable.zip (second blue button). It already contains WinUpdater.
• LibreWolf will be updated automatically whenever you run LibreWolf-Portable.exe (checks for new versions happen once a day). If you only wish to perform update checks manually, just rename WinUpdater to e.g. LibreWolf-ManualUpdater.exe and run it whenever you like.

Scheduled updates

• When installing LibreWolf, select the option Schedule Automatic Updates to automatically set up what's described in the point below.
• You can run LibreWolf WinUpdater to enable the option Schedule a task for automatic update checks. This will prompt for administrator permissions and a blue (PowerShell) window will notify you of the result. The scheduled task will run while the current user account is logged in (at 1 minute after login, and every 4 hours).
• If your account has administrator permissions, the update will be fully automatic. If not, the update will be downloaded and you will be asked to start the update (administrator permissions required).
• If LibreWolf is already running, you will be notified about the new version. The update will start as soon as you close the browser.

Settings

Settings and log file

• The updater needs to be able to write to LibreWolf-WinUpdater.ini in its own folder (so make sure it has permission to do so), otherwise WinUpdater will copy itself to %AppData%\LibreWolf\WinUpdater and run from there.
• LibreWolf-WinUpdater.ini contains a [Log] section that shows the results of the last update check and the last update action.

Self-updating

LibreWolf WinUpdater also updates itself automatically, so you won't have to check for new releases on this page. However, if you prefer to update it manually, you can set UpdateSelf to 0 in the .ini file under [Settings]:

[Settings]
UpdateSelf=0

Changing the working directory

If for some reason WinUpdater is not able to use the user's default %Temp% folder for downloading and extracting files, you can specify an alternative work directory by setting WorkDir in the .ini file under [Settings]:

[Settings]
WorkDir=D:\Temp

To specify the directory of LibreWolf-WinUpdater.exe, use WorkDir=..

Issues

Anti-cheat software

If you set up scheduled updates, you might get annoyed by some anti-cheat software. It may wrongfully point at WinUpdater, because it is built upon AutoHotkey, which can be used to cheat in games. If this happens, you can either:

1. Open the Task Scheduler via the Start menu, then double-click on LibreWolf WinUpdater... in the Task Scheduler Library, open the Triggers tab, then click on One time and the button Delete. Then press OK to make the change to only check for updates 1 minute after login (and not every 4 hours). This will still cause issues if you leave games opened when locking your user account, though.
2. Create a shortcut to %AppData%\LibreWolf\WinUpdater\LibreWolf-Winupdater.exe /RemoveTask and one to %AppData%\LibreWolf\WinUpdater\LibreWolf-Winupdater.exe /CreateTask (on your desktop), so you can quickly prevent WinUpdater from running during gameplay and reactivate it afterwards. Just put them next to the shortcuts of your game launchers and you won't forget.

Signature verification

WinUpdater will validate itself and the setup file (or librewolf.exe when downloading the portable version) via the signing certificate. For this, PowerShell is used in the background. You may get the warning Could not verify that (...) was correctly signed or the error Signature verification has failed if you have blocked internet access for PowerShell (e.g. %WinDir%\SysWOW64\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe). For signature verification, PowerShell needs to be able to update certificate revocation lists. If this is not possible on your system, you can permanently disable signature checks and rely on the file hash checks exclusively by setting NoSigChecks to 1 in the .ini file under [Settings]:

[Settings]
NoSigChecks=1

Server certificate revocation

You may encounter a Security Alert: Revocation information for the Security certificate for this site is not available Windows dialog or a The server certificate revocation check for (...) has failed warning by WinUpdater. This can happen if you have enabled the non-default option Check for server certificate revocation in the Windows Internet Options (tab Advanced). You can tell WinUpdater to automatically continue when this dialog pops up by setting IgnoreCrlErrors to 1 in the .ini file under [Settings]:

[Settings]
IgnoreCrlErrors=1

Credits

• LibreWolf by the LibreWolf Community
• Original icon by the LibreWolf Community