installed without your permission, it's all right to disable automatic installation. However, I don't recommend disabling automatic checking because then you won't be notified when important updates are available. To disable automatic update checking or installation, follow these steps: Click the Advanced icon at the top of the window. Click the Update tab. Do one of the following: To disable automatic update checking, deselect the desired update types. For example, to disable automatic checking for updates to your installed themes and extensions, deselect the Installed Extensions & Themes check box. To disable automatic update installation, under When Updates to Firefox are Found, select Ask Me What I Want to Do. Click OK. Checking for updates manually If you decide to disable automatic update checking, or if you want to check for updates more frequently than the Firefox once-a-day check, you can check for Firefox updates manually at any time by following these steps: If an update is available, the Update Wizard appears and walks you through the update process, as shown in Figure 15-10. Otherwise, Firefox tells you that no updates are available. If no updates are available, click Finish and skip the remaining steps. Figure 15-10: If you choose to install updates manually, the Update Wizard walks you through the process. Read about the available updates and decide whether you want to install them. If an update is incompatible with one or more of your installed extensions or themes, Firefox warns you and offers a list of the incompatible extensions and themes, which you can access by clicking the Show List button. If you decide to proceed with the update, Firefox automatically disables the incompatible extensions and themes until their authors release updated versions. You can discover and install these updated versions by repeating these steps, or you can wait until Firefox automatically discovers and installs them, provided you have not disabled the automatic update features (as I discuss in the earlier section, "Disabling automatic update checking or installation"). To install the updates, click Download & Install Now. Firefox displays a progress meter indicating the progress of the update. Click Finish to close the Update Wizard. When the update finishes, you might need to restart Firefox. Monitoring new developments Hundreds of new security exploits and attacks have been discovered between the time this book was published and the time you're reading it now. It's critical that you monitor the latest developments so you know how to protect yourself against new tricks. Plenty of online resources update daily. Here are a few of the top dogs of security: Microsoft Security Home Page: Offers one-click access to the latest Windows updates, new tips for protecting your computer, and the ongoing blog of the Microsoft Security Response Team. http://www.microsoft.com/security CERT Coordination Center: Run by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, CERT is one of the world's most renowned security response teams, and for good reason: It was also the first. At its Web site, the team posts information about critical security flaws in a wide array of software. http://www.cert.org/nav/index_red.html