Unless the issue of advertising change things, which doesn't seem very likely, Firefox It is the default browser that we find in most Linux distributions. It is usually up to date, but there are also distributions that offer an ESR version or we might find a strange case where it is not in the official repositories. Or if we want to use the Nightly version to find out what's new before it reaches the stable version, it is best to install the browser from its binaries.
Mozilla offers several Firefox packages for Linux. It is as a package flatpackas the snap, which Ubuntu uses by default, a native version in an official repository for Debian-based distributions, native versions in official repositories of many distributions, and I don't know if I left something out. It also offers a "portable" option that we can use directly by clicking on its executable or install the binaries, and the latter is what we are going to explain here.
Why install Firefox binaries and steps to follow
I do not recommend installing Firefox binaries unless we have no other option. If we want to use different profiles, Firefox offers that possibility. But there is a lot that can happen and it is difficult to imagine all the scenarios. Yes, it is easier to think that we want to use a preview version, and Mozilla also offers Beta, Dev and Nightly channels. To install one of these versions from its binaries, or the stable one if that is what we want, we will have to do the following:
- We download the tarball of the desired Firefox version. In the FTP we find the stable ones, and here the preliminaries mentioned above.
- We open a terminal and write the following:
sudo mkdir /opt/firefox sudo chown $USER:$USER /opt/firefox/ tar -xvf file_path/firefox-VERSION-.0a1.*.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
The above, where you have to change "VERSION" for the version number, will unzip the folder in the directory opt, and will have execute permissions. If the "firefox" folder is empty, we unzip the file and copy its contents by hand to the same path. But to finish the installation, there are a couple more steps left.
- In the terminal, we write (gedit, nano or any other):
nano ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop
- Finally, we paste all this text into the .desktop file that we just created:
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Name=Firefox Nightly Comment=Browse the web with the Nightly version GenericName=Web Browser Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox %u Icon=/home /pablinux/Images/logos/firefox_nightly.png Terminal=false Type=Application MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;text/mml;x-scheme- handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;application/x-xpinstall;application/pdf;application/json; StartupNotify=true Categories=Network;WebBrowser; Actions=new-window;new-private-window;profile-manager-window; StartupWMClass=firefox [Desktop Action new-window] Name=Open new window Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox -new-window [Desktop Action new-private-window] Name=Open new private window Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox -private-window
To consider
The above .desktop file information It is for use in Spanish from Spain. If someone wants to use it in another language, all they have to do is change the texts of the “name=”, “comment=”, “GenericName=” and maybe the categories, although I wouldn't touch the latter; it will probably work better if it is in English.
It is important to change the "icon=" line so that it includes the path to the icon that we want to be displayed. In my case, I have it in my personal folder / Images / logos / with the name firefox_nightly.png. The size of the image doesn't matter, or not much, but the format does, depending on the desktop. To prevent confusions, PNG is recommended.
The previous text has everything necessary, among which we can launch incognito windows. If we want "Beta", "Dev", or "Nightly" to appear, we have to find that line and modify it. The above is the .desktop file for the Nightly version, and it is exactly what I have.
To undo the changes, we just have to delete the folder inside opt and the .desktop file.
Valid for other programs… more or less
This is valid for other programs as well. Just one thing to keep in mind: Mozilla allows its browser to update automatically from the same application in a similar way to what happens in Windows and macOS. In other programs, updating may require redoing all steps except creating the .desktop file.
This is the best way to have multiple versions of Firefox on Linux, or one if the operating system doesn't make it easy.