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Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is available for many Operating Systems, on desktop and mobile.
- In this video, we look at how to install Firefox on Debian 10. Enjoy!For instructions and more, look here:https://www.linuxmadesimple.info/2019/07/how-to-in.
- You can install it with the following commands: $ apt-get update $ apt-get install firefox. Please report any problem to the pkg-mozilla-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org list. The mozilla.debian.net archive is signed, so APT may complain until you add the archive key to your APT keyring.
- Download Mozilla Firefox, a free web browser. Firefox is created by a global not-for-profit dedicated to putting individuals in control online. Get Firefox for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS today!
Contents
- Installing Firefox
- Profile
Installing Firefox
From Debian packages
On DebianStable, Install the firefox-esr package.
Debian 7.3 wheezy does not come with Firefox but Iceweasel installed as default. Iceweasel is a rebranded of Mozilla Firefox due to trademark issues. Iceweasel is supported by debian and Firefox is supported by Mozilla Corporation. However if you want to install Mozilla Firefox on debian 7.3 wheezy, I’m going to show you how in this article.
This installs the Extended Support Release of Firefox. ESRs are not updated with new features every six weeks. They are instead supported for more than a year, updating with major security or stability fixes.
Support for languages other than English is available in packages named firefox-esr-l10n*.
On DebianUnstable, to install the Release version of Firefox, install the firefox package.
From Mozilla binaries
Mozilla distributes ready-to-use Firefox binaries for Linux on their website:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ - Release
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/#beta - Beta
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/#nightly - Nightly
To install any of them on DebianStable:
Debian Install Firefox Developer Edition
- Download the Firefox version you want directly from the official website
- Uncompress the archives:
in the /opt directory (system-wide installation - requires Root privileges)
- in your home directory (install only for the current user)
Create a file firefox-stable.desktop (replace stable with beta or nightly if needed) with the contents below:
in the /usr/share/applications directory (system-wide installation - requires Root privileges)
in the ~/.local/share/applications directory (install only for the current user)
Replace /opt/firefox with the path to the directory where you extracted the archive.
If you want to be able to launch Firefox from a CommandLineInterface, create a symlink to the firefox executable in /usr/local/bin/. For example: sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox
If you want to use your manually installed Firefox as the default DebianAlternatives browser (x-www-browser), run sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-www-browser x-www-browser /opt/firefox/firefox 200 && sudo update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /opt/firefox/firefox
From Flathub
Mozilla provides an official FlatPak at FlatHub.
If you haven't already set up flatpak, run
Install it:
Run it:
If you have added /var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin to your PATH, you can also run it with the command
If you want to use your Firefox flatpak as the default DebianAlternatives browser (x-www-browser), run
Flatpaks don't support native messaging. Therefore, add-ons which rely on it such as KeePassXC Browser don't work. A workaround for KeePassXC is described in the Flathub forum. Since the KeePassXC's socket has been renamed in KeePassXC 2.6, for this version you need to tweak the solution as described in comment #3
Using snap
Mozilla provides an official Snap package for Firefox:
If you haven't already installed snapd, run
Install it:
Run it:
Snap packages don't support native messaging. Therefore, add-ons which rely on it such as KeePassXC Browser don't work. Since KeePassXC's server socket has been renamed, you need to tweak the workaround as explained in https://discourse.flathub.org/t/how-to-run-firefox-and-keepassxc-in-a-flatpak-and-get-the-keepassxc-browser-add-on-to-work/437/3?u=jro
Profile
Firefox user data (your home page, toolbars, installed extensions, passwords, bookmarks...) are stored in a profile folder. (See this Mozilla support page).
~/.mozilla/firefox/: location of profile directorie, for flatpak installations, it is ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/
/etc/firefox-esr/default/profile/: Files to copy to newly created profiles. Use this location to preconfigure Firefox.
~/.mozilla/firefox/*.*/user.js: firefox preferences for each profile. These preferences can also be set from the browser interface, or from the about:config page.
/etc/firefox-esr/firefox-esr.js: default Firefox system-wide preferences. Each profile/user can override these preferences.
You can start the Profile Manager from Firefox or from the command line: firefox --no-remote -P
* If firefox refuses to start with the existing profile because the version of firefox launched is supposedly not compatible, you can try removing the file compatibility.ini within the profiles directory. You may want to back up the profiles directory first, in case of an actual incompatibility.
or, if you are using flatpak
Disabling automatic connections
Firefox makes a number of automated connections to Mozilla's (and other's) servers without explicitly asking the user for approval. Mozilla documents that list in the How to stop Firefox from making automatic connections page. Here is a table of the above parameters and how Debian diverges from the upstream default:
The table below may be out of date. It was created on 2018-09-23 from the upstream page by looking at an empty profile on Firefox ESR 60.2.1esr-1. Mozilla's documentation itself may be missing some parameters as well.
Feature | Parameter | Mozilla | Debian |
Auto-update checking | app.update.enabled | true | false |
Auto-update search engines | browser.search.update | true | true |
Blocklist updating | extensions.blocklist.enabled | true | true |
Anti-phishing and malware protection lists | browser.safebrowsing.downloads.remote.enabled | true | true |
Tracking protection | privacy.trackingprotection.enabled | false | false |
Secure website certificates (OCSP) | security.OCSP.enabled | 1 | 1 |
Link prefetching | network.prefetch-next | true | true |
DNS prefetching | network.dns.disablePrefetch | false (means enabled) | false |
Speculative pre-connections | network.http.speculative-parallel-limit | 6 | 0 |
Add-on list prefetching | N/A (can't be turned off) | enabled | enabled |
Extensions update check | extensions.update.enabled | true | true |
Live Bookmarks updating | N/A (user-enabled) | none by default | none by default |
Downloads restarted | N/A (user-enabled) | N/A | N/A |
Search plugin icon loading | ? | ? | ? |
Firefox Sync | ? (needs user to opt-in) | N/A | N/A |
Snippets | browser.aboutHomeSnippets.updateUrl | enabled | enabled |
Geolocation for default search engine | browser.search.geoip.url | enabled | enabled |
'What's new' page | browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone | enabled | enabled |
Add-on metadata updating | extensions.getAddons.cache.enabled | enabled | enabled |
Telemetry | browser.selfsupport.url | N/A? | N/A? |
Telemetry | toolkit.telemetry.enabled | false in releases, true in nightly | false? there are other parameters |
toolkit.telemetry.coverage.opt-out | not present (means enabled) | not present | |
OpenH264 plugin download | media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled | true | false |
WebRTC | multiple | enabled | enabled? |
Send Video To Device | browser.casting.enabled | false | N/A? |
Captive portal detection | network.captive-portal-service.enabled | true | true |
Loopback connection | can't be disabled | disabled on Linux | disabled |
Other projects aim at improving security and privacy in Firefox:
TorBrowser - Firefox-based Web browser aimed at defending against tracking, surveillance, and censorship.
https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js - Firefox configuration hardening
https://gitlab.com/anarcat/scripts/blob/master/firefox-tmp - Anarcat's firefox-tmp script
Plugins
The only plugin supported by Firefox is FlashPlayer (NPAPI version). Other plugins are no longer supported.
Plugins are found at /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins (system wide) or ~/.mozilla/plugins (current user only).
Troubleshooting
Firefox is consistently crashing on a website:
Run firefox in safe mode (extensions and themes disabled): firefox --safe-mode
- If this fixes the problem, one of your extensions is the root cause, if not:
Create a new firefox profile: firefox --no-remote -P (or from the about:profiles page)
No sound:
Go through the general Sound troubleshooting steps. If this fails, reinstall alsa and pulseaudio:
Iceweasel
From Debian Etch through Debian Jessie (9th June 2016), Mozilla Firefox was not available in Debian with the official name or branding. Instead, Debian shipped a free-software version rebranded by Debian, named Iceweasel. This fork was maintained because of a disagreement with Mozilla regarding backporting of the security fixes to DebianStable, and as the result could not use trademarked Mozilla artwork.
Starting from DebianStretch, the iceweasel package has been made a transitional package for firefox-esr. Normal Debian support policies, including patches for bug fixes, apply to the package.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/10/msg00665.html - Will IceWeasel be based on a fork or on vanilla FireFox?
https://lwn.net/Articles/676799/ - The end of the Iceweasel Age
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=815006 - Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox
Iceweasel used to require gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-good packages for good video playback support.
External links
Mozilla Firefox Homepage
Debian Mozilla Team
Firefox - Arch Wiki
#debian-mozillaIRC channel
CategoryWebBrowser | CategorySoftware | CategoryNetworkApplication | CategoryRedundant: merge relevant info from Mozilla
Download Page for firefox_88.0-1_amd64.deb on AMD64 machines
If you are running Debian, it is strongly suggested to use a package manager like aptitude or synaptic to download and install packages, instead of doing so manually via this website.
You should be able to use any of the listed mirrors by adding a line to your /etc/apt/sources.list like this:
Replacing ftp.de.debian.org/debian with the mirror in question.
Debian Install Firefox From Unstable
You can download the requested file from the pool/main/f/firefox/ subdirectory at any of these sites:
North America
South America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Oceania
If none of the above sites are fast enough for you, please see our complete mirror list.
Note that in some browsers you will need to tell your browser you want the file saved to a file. For example, in Firefox or Mozilla, you should hold the Shift key when you click on the URL.
More information on firefox_88.0-1_amd64.deb:
Debian Install Firefox
| Exact Size | 57331532 Byte (54.7 MByte) |
|---|---|
| MD5 checksum | 69611ded38f062b3ab036199940b1169 |
| SHA1 checksum | Not Available |
| SHA256 checksum | 7883685f3f387109aad2f7487bcc2f2082e4ba25aed7b948ddd3b51e70c0dccc |