About a month ago I jail broke my iPad for the first time. I was on firmware 4.3.1 at the time. A couple of weeks after that I updated to 4.3.2 and jail broke again using redsn0w. Now there is another firmware update, and I'm wondering if it is really necessary to upgrade again? I don't mind doing it now I have got the hang of doing it, and using pkgbackup, but it is quite time consuming so if it isn't necessary I might just skip this update and wait for a more major change.

It is only necessary if the well publicised location tracking features cause you concern and the Cydia package "trackered" does not provide you enough protection. Totally up to you, but if you have a stable well configured iPad that you are happy with, the general advice is to leave well alone until there is a feature you want to upgrade for...
That said, I did 4.3.3 last night. Took about 2 hours all in (full backup and restore) and no problems at all...

Is the location tracking features only for 3G/4G devices? I have a wifi only iPad, so I don't think it can not do any location tracking. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong!

I believe there is still a component of this in the wifi only iPad. It still has location services despite being wifi only (although no true GPS). Of course it has no details about cell towers, but it is the known location of wifi hotspots which allows location services to work on the WiFi iPad, so the issue is not irrelevant.
That said, the whole "locationgate" thing was a complete mountain out of a molehill as far as I'm concerned.

I guess there is some info based on the internet provider you use... Google gives me targeted ads from my city when I do a search, whether using my laptop or my iPad!

Husband is on nights, kids are asleep, so I'm going to have a go tonight. The location thing doesn't worry me hugely as my iPad only ever goes to my house and my office, but still that's none of Apple's business so it's better if they don't track me.

Oh no, please help me. I put the iPad in DFU mode then installed the new firmware and restored it, but I have lost 90% of my apps and I can't jailbreak again because redsn0w says it can't recognise the firmware.

It is midnight in the UK now so I will have to come back to this in the morning. Please can someone advise how I can get back to where I was before?

To get your apps back, you need to connect your iPad to iTunes.

First, if you want all the settings as they were before you must restore from a previous backup - I take it you synced with iTunes before you ran the restore? If so, it will ask if you want to set the iPad up as "new", which will completely empty, or to restore from a pervious backup. The second one is what you should choose if you want your settings back.

Then, once that has complete, you must sync ALL your apps back on from iTunes. Even if you don't want your settings back and set up as new, you must still sync all your Apps back. Same with music, videos, photos, etc.

There is a link in my sig to my "upgrade" process. That lays out the process for updating a JB iPad between versions of iOS.

Hope that helps.

I'm not bothering with 4.3.3 I like my iPad the way it it. I had to do the 4.3.2 jailbreak three times before I got it stable and I'm not going through that again for something that doesn't bother me at all

Sent from my iPad using iPF

Yippee, everything is back now! I didn't realise I had to sync as well as restore lol. I now have a fully operational iPad jail broken on 4.3.3, and as far as I can tell, nothing has been lost. I don't think I will do another update anytime soon though, that was very time consuming.