[conspire] How to update packages when Deb is behind?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Generally, Debian and apt-get is a good way to install features, but
> not always.
> 
> I just got yet another error with a website, that I wanted to visit,
> saying my browser is not up to date.  

Heh.  Another weenie webmaster wanting to argue with customers.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Web/opti.html

If it's not a privacy concern, what was the Web site?  I strongly
suspect, upon examination, that the site does not actually need anything
but a pretty generic Web browser, but the weenie in charge has caused a
bit of Javascript code to query your browser and compare the reported
User-Agent string against a list of what the weenie considers suitable.
If your browser's reported User-Agent string isn't on the list, a popup
proclaims -- without competent data to support that declaration -- that
your 'browser is not up to date'.

For versions of Firefox prior to v. 57, you can install User Agent Switcher
(https://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/, Debian package
xul-ext-useragentswitcher.  This allows you to, on the fly and whenever
desired, make Firefox answer User-Agent queries with any of a number of
canned responses that are the identification strings of common browsers
/ versions thereof.

There are at least two good use-cases I can think of, for altering a
browser's User-Agent string.  The first is to sidestep the
aforementioned weenies.  The second is (if you wish) to declare yours to
be the browser of a mobile device, so that you get served the
mobile-optimised site content rather than the regular content.  (The
mobile site is often less fussy and of much cleaner design, reflecting
smartphones and tablets having less screen real-estate to waste.)

The reason for my caveat about Firefox versions since v. 57 is that
Mozilla, Inc. made the decision to abandon the XUL extensions language 
and the XBL communications language required for most Firefox
extensions, and User Agent Switcher is a classic extension written in
XUL.

For Firefox v. 57+ (which you do not currently have), the equivalent is
User Agent Overrider, written in Mozilla, Inc.'s (well, several
companies') replacement extensions language, WebExtensions.

My personal opinion is that you should count your lucky stars that you
_haven't_ been force-migrated to current Firefox, so you can still enjoy
the classic and often excellent XUL-based extension codebases.



But getting to the Frequently Asked Question you raised later in your
post:

There _is_ a longer-term concern, though.  I infer that you are running
the Debian-stable branch, currently "Stretch' aka Debian 9.  The Stable
branch is the one widely recommended for ordinary users, and has many
advantages.  It has full security support, and the contents are, as the
branch nickname would indicate, rock-stable.  And you are protected from
rapid version churn and hundreds of megs of update packages every few
days.

The downside of Debian-stable is that the software versions are... old.  
Fixes (including security fixes) get 'backported' to a version of each
software package that was picked as a long-term stable version for the
life of the Debian release.  You won't normally pick up newer upstream
software releases, only backported fixes to the chosen stable one.

For people who eventually chafe at Debian-stable's electing of a fixed
'platform' for maintenance in each Debian-stable release, with the
consequence that you never get the new and shiny, there _are_
alternatives to Debian-stable that get you the new and shiny, but 
you should (please) be _very_ attentive to the unavoidable side-effects:  
If you were, for example, to alter your Debian-stable system to instead
follow the Debian-testing track (currently 'Buster', which will be
Debian 10 when releases as the next Debian-stable release), then 
you will get all of the new & shiny, _and_ you will get a certain amount
of glitchiness, spotty security-fix coverage, rapid version churn, and
hundreds of megs of update packages every few days that are essentially
unavoidable with a 'rolling' distribution, which is what Debian-testing
is.

Rather than make an irrevocable change to your system, by moving it
forward from Stable to Testing
(https://wiki.debian.org/DebianStability), you might consider installing
the current Debian-testing in a VM or on a spare machine, and see how
you like it for a week or three.

> Debian has Firefox 45.8.0.   The latest Firefox is 46.0.2.  Mozilla
> website claims it has a lot of new stuff.  

Programmers always push their new and shiny as something you couldn't
possibly live without.  Whether that's true or not is for you to decide,
not them.

There might be reasons to want to use Firefox's new & shiny -- which, by
the way, is v. 60.0.2, not 46.0.2 -- but some Web weenie using a
JavaScript trick to diss your client software because its User-Agent
string isn't on his list isn't among them.


> Actually, there are other applications for which I would also like a
> version newer than in Debian.

You mean, in Debian-_stable_.

Try Debian-testing in a VM or on a spare machine.  You might like it.

(The people most likely to have problems on Debian tracks such as
Testing or Unstable, the ones that are the suitable alternatives to
Stable, are the users who depend on the various monstrous Desktop
Environments, such as GNOME3, Cinnamon, MATE, KDE4, and to a lesser
extent XFCE4 and LXDE/LXQt.  Those DEs as a whole will tend to be
plagued by periods in which the new versions of particular DE packages
will be uninstallable because of missing dependencies.  OTOH, people 
like me who wouldn't touch a DE with a bargepole, and prefer a simple
window manager, tend to love Debian-testing.)