How to install the "real" Firefox on Debian Squeeze

[friarath]

Sorry if someone mentioned this already but Firefox has a native x86_64 build here:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/f ... eases/4.0/
and it seems to work allright.

For me the bookmark toolbar buttons stop working after a while so that is annoying. I am looking into Opera and SRWare Iron right now.

[Lou]

I'm not too bright when it comes to these things, but i try my best

I downloaded Firefox 4.0.1 from mozilla.org to my /home, extracted it, clicked on the new folder till i got to the executable then copied the path to my ratpoison keybinds, restarted rp, got out of the Xs, went back in and it worked. FF4 is great, faster...

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bind f exec ~/firefox-4.0.1/firefox/firefox

Made FF4 my default browser and hoped for the best, i wonder if i will get updates...
Kept iceweasel for my wife, she likes it better

[milomak]

Made FF4 my default browser and hoped for the best, i wonder if i will get updates...

my experiences are that you have to do the updates manually

[Lou]

my experiences are that you have to do the updates manually

I'm happy to report that the update was automatically, using now FF 5.0

[craigevil]

My Firefox Information

Last updated: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:06:56 GMT
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0

Extensions (enabled: 17, disabled: 3; total: 20)

• Adblock Plus 1.3.8
• BeeFree 2.1.34 [disabled]
• BetterPrivacy 1.51
• ChatZilla 0.9.87 [disabled]
• CoLT 2.5.1
• FlashGot 1.3.0.1
• Google Toolbar for Firefox 7.1.20110512L [disabled]
• HTTPS Finder 0.69
• HTTPS-Everywhere 0.9.7
• InfoLister 0.10.4a1
• Konquefox 1.7.5
• MafiaaFire Redirector 0.6b
• Movable Firefox Button 1.3
• Nightly Tester Tools 3.1.7
• NoScript 2.1.1.2rc5
• OptimizeGoogle 0.78.2
• Oxygen KDE Options 3.1
• PDF Download 3.0.0.2
• Stylish 1.1.2
• Torbutton 1.3.3-alpha

Themes (3)

• Default
• Firefox B [selected]
• Oxygen KDE [selected]

Plugins

• Adobe Reader 9.4
• DivX Browser Plug-In
• Google Talk Plugin
• Google Talk Plugin Video Accelerator
• Helix DNA Plugin: RealPlayer G2 Plug-In Compatible
• Java(TM) Plug-in 1.6.0_26
• mplayerplug-in is now gecko-mediaplayer 0.9.9.2
• OpenOffice.org Plug-in
• QuickTime Plug-in 7.6.4
• RealPlayer 9
• Shockwave Flash
• Windows Media Player Plug-in

[eric1959]

http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.c ... uilds.html
http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.c ... check.html

Now running Firefox UX-Build :

[Optionator]

Hello forum,

I am sorry, but I have to resurrect this thread, because I just stumbled upon it here:
http://superuser.com/a/322381
and I think there are some things that can be improved upon or even simplified.

1. Download latest firefox from: http://www.mozilla.com

Only some cosmetics here, as others already pointed to the native 64-bit build available directly from mozilla. Have a look at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/ ... es/latest/ and you shall find a linux-i686 version for 32-bit linux and a linux-x86_64 for 64-bit versions of linux.

4. Change permissions

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# chown -R root:users /opt/firefox
# chmod 750 /opt/firefox

note: your user should be a member of the group "users"

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# usermod -a -G users username

Why bother with setting group ownership to users and making it non-executable for non-users? I see no benefit there, even more so on a Desktop system which is often times used by one single user anyway. Not even the Debain maintainers do that. By default most applications installed through apt are owned by root:root and files are created with a umask of 022, meaning anybody can access the program but not change it. So let´s do the same:

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# chown -R root:root /opt/firefox
# chmod -R go-w /opt/firefox

and be done with it. Strictly speaking, these steps are not necessary at all, since we unpacked the archive as root and the files have their ownership and permissions set correctly by the mozilla team already. But if one is paranoid, there is no harm in doing it anyway.

5. Create symbolic link

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# ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

Make that

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ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

and we have a winner (see http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-man ... LHIERARCHY).

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$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

See, how /usr/local/bin comes first in the default PATH, so our link in there will take precedence. This way you can have Iceweasel and upstream Firefox coexist peacefully, without your link being replaced by apt (without you being asked for permission!) in case of an update to Iceweasel.

Add a shortcut menu:
1. Create firefox.desktop file

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# touch /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

2. Edit firefox.desktop (nano is used in this example, any editor will do):

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# nano /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

I can´t speak for nano, but I am pretty sure you don´t need to create the file before editing it. Also, I would like to point out, that files in /usr/share/applications are not safe from being overwritten by apt. However unlikely it might be for Debian Squeeze to put a file called firefox.desktop there, who knows what Wheezy might bring to the table. I guess not knowing or, even worse, not caring about the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard and the Debian Policy, is one of the major reasons for people´ s complaints about stuff breaking, when installing an upgrade by apt.
So ideally, the proper place for firefox.desktop would be /usr/local/share/applications/. Sadly though, Debian doesn´t recognize that location (yet?). But there are other options, see http://wiki.debian.org/MIME#Application_association:

[...] It can be system-wide (in /usr/share/applications or a subdirectory) or user-specific (in $HOME/.local/share/applications). [...]

As someone, who uses different user accounts at times, I prefer the system-wide option and the subdirectory part is the most interesting. So let´s "trick" Squeeze into using /usr/local/share/applications/:

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# mkdir -p /usr/local/share/applications
# ln -s !$ /usr/share/applications/local

and put firefox.desktop there. Since it is common practice to reserve the "local" namespace for administrators to customize the system locally, I find it highly unlikely to experience any collisions with Debian packages.

So that´s about it for my comments and sugesstions on this Howto. One word for the ones suggesting to install Firefox somewhere inside $HOME: DANGEROUS. Most often times this implies, you unpack the files as an ordinary user (not root), hence they will be owned and writeable by yourself. While this may seem to make things more convenient, like the automatic update feature works, it makes it also very easy and convenient for an attacker to crack your browser. Say you visit a malicious website, which is not yet known as such, so Firefox cannot warn you. Some code on that website exploits a not yet publicly known security flaw inside Firefox, which enables it to inject and execute arbitrary code. If all the files Firefox consists of are owned and writable by the user running it, so will they be for the attacking site/individual, and it will be all too easy to manipulate the browser permanently, so that everytime you run it there will be a little E.T. phoning home or whatever. Whereas were the browser files owned by root and properly non-writeable by anybody else, the same code injection would be possible but less the manipulability of the program files themselves. There is a reason, why all program files are owned and exclusively writeable by root.

[craigevil]

Firefox has been sitting in my /home/craig/Downloads/firefox/ since Debian changed the name to Iceweasel.

Not once have I had any issues with any nasty overwriting anything.

I use NoScript, AdblockPlus, and I keep Flash and Java disabled unless I need to use them.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0

Unless you have more than one user on a system I see absolutely no reason to worry about moving any files.

I run both Firefox and Thunderbird from my /home , always have always will. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

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[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=/home/craig/Downloads/firefox/firefox
GenericName[en_US]=Firefox
GenericName=Firefox
Icon=/home/craig/Downloads/firefox/icons/mozicon128.png
MimeType=text/html;image/png;image/jpeg;image/gif;application/xml;application/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;
Name[en_US]=Firefox
Name=Firefox
Path=
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=Firefox-bin
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=
X-GNOME-FullName=Firefox
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=Firefox
X-MultipleArgs=false

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Categories=Network;Email;News;GTK;
Comment[en_US]=Read/Write Mail/News with Thunderbird
Comment=Read/Write Mail/News with Thunderbird
Exec=/home/craig/Downloads/thunderbird/thunderbird %u
GenericName[en_US]=Mail Client
GenericName=Mail Client
Icon=/home/craig/Downloads/thunderbird/chrome/icons/default/default32.png
MimeType=message/rfc822;
Name[en_US]=Thunderbird Mail/News
Name=Thunderbird Mail/News
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
X-MultipleArgs=false

[Optionator]

Firefox has been sitting in my /home/craig/Downloads/firefox/ since Debian changed the name to Iceweasel.

Not once have I had any issues with any nasty overwriting anything.

I use NoScript, AdblockPlus, and I keep Flash and Java disabled unless I need to use them.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0

Unless you have more than one user on a system I see absolutely no reason to worry about moving any files.

I run both Firefox and Thunderbird from my /home , always have always will. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?
[...]

Well, as I said, the reason is increased security, namely being protected from someone tinkering with your executables without you knowing. It is only those attackers that seek attention, that will let you know, they were there. And "It has always worked for me so far", is no guarantee, it will stay like that. Addon software can only do so much to protect you and your beloved bits and bytes. it might even have security flaws of its own, no wait, it is almost certain to have them, only question is, who will find them first, the good or the bad guys! Plus, who says, it really has worked so far, it is you and you don´t have a way of being certain, or did you, say, make a signed md5sums list of all the files at risk, saved it in a place that´s secure from your own users account and protected the signing key appropriately? But that would really complicate things, so I hazard the guess, you did not.
But I guess I could write a book in here and not convince the die hards, oh well. I just wrote my comments for those not already preoccupied by their vast experience, so they might see a reason for going the sightly less convenient route, which can go a long way. Just to summarize this supposedly overly complicated procedure:

1. Downloading Firefox, it´s the same for both routes.
2.

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$ su #+1 step
# cd /opt # where cd to makes no difference, so +0
# tar xjf /path/to/downloaded/firefox-x.x.x.tar.bz2 # see above, +0
# ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox # +0, this you will have to do one way or the other, or leave it altogether, if you create your own .desktop file anyway.

Everything else is the same, except you have slightly different looking .desktop files.
So for installing that´s one additional step and entering the root password. And for updating, well it´s as easy as:

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$ su
# cd /opt && rm -rf firefox && tar xjf /path/to/downloaded/firefox-x.x.x.tar.bz2

which is not too hard to put into a script file.
By the way, those are the only steps necessary to install and update Firefox, with creating that symlink being perfectly optional. I never bothered with creating .desktop files, thanks to the "Run" dialog, ALT+F2 in GNOME and similar shortcuts, and then only entering "fir" (autocompletes to "firefox") and hitting enter is often quicker than getting my hand away from the keyboard, navigating to and clicking the icon or menu entry.

P.S.:
Funny, how you have this in your signature: 'Debian - "If you can't apt-get something, it isn't useful or doesn't exist"', yet you run "non-useful software", because exist Firefox does.

[dasein]

[nadir]

Firefox has been sitting in my /home/craig/Downloads/firefox/ since Debian changed the name to Iceweasel.

I can't remember who wrote the thread "iceweasel is firefox" and which was a sticky, at the top of each and every section. I could swear it has been you.
No? Lavene ?

A sticky less is always a good thing though (forums with stickies are a pain to browse from cli).

[vbrummond]

To see the differences between iceweasel and firefox, just type in url bar: about:buildconfig

Not much different except Firefox uses -O3 for some reason.

[nadir]

To see the differences between iceweasel and firefox, just type in url bar: about:buildconfig

Not much different except Firefox uses -O3 for some reason.

Uhum.
Truth to be told: i really got no idea.
Some say this, some say that ( i think i tend to believe you, but could not give any arguments).
I use iceweasel cause it is there, an apt-get away (iow: simply cause i am lazy, and it does what i want. On stable it might be i have to use the mozilla repo (?), but that already bugs me: hunt the web, copy and paste repo-entry, install key and all). Been fooling a lot with low-spec web-browsers these days (dillo, surfnet and, recommended by anticapitalista, links2). Now that is a different story. With dillo running i am below 50MB (while i got only 120, hence it matters a lot). But that was off-topic.

[craigevil]

yes the "Iceweasel IS Firefox" sticky was done by me.

I have used Firefox since it was first released by Mozilla way back when it was called Phoenix then Firebird and now Firefox.

While Iceweasel is technically the same it has never worked the same for me or for others like h2.

I do have Iceweasel installed as well as Google Chrome, Konqueror, and uzbl.

I bounce between running Firefox and Chrome.

As for any difference in about:buildconfig I personally haven't a clue what any of that stuff means.

Firefox and Thunderbird are the only two apps on my system that were not installed by simply using apt-get install.

For a newbie using Iceweasel from backports or the mozilla.debian.net repo would be the simplest thing to do.

[vbrummond]

As for any difference in about:buildconfig I personally haven't a clue what any of that stuff means.

That is because it doesn't really matter. But the facts are right there in that tab if anyone is curious.

For a newbie using Iceweasel from backports or the mozilla.debian.net repo would be the simplest thing to do.

Probably. I hope that eventually Debian just has Firefox back for simplicity sake. Though my ol' mum asked why this chrome and firefox has to crash and if she can have Iceweasel back.

[llivv]

take a look under the hood ?

[bohu]

I get Firefox and flash from LinuxMint's debian repo. It works fine in Debian Testing (don't know about Debian Stable).

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import

the first package you'll need to install is linuxmint-keyring

as a side note: It occurred to me the other day that flash is (I think) the only proprietary software on my computer. It's amazing how far we've come in the last 10 years.

[Linadian]

I don't see what the big deal is, Iceweasel works just fine for me, Firefox is getting fairly bloated anyway and I don't like anybody else choosing my default search engines, etc, for me. If it's because Iceweasel is ugly on some systems, try installing the GUI crossover packages to make it look the same as the rest of your GUI, in Synaptic search gtk or qt, you will see all kinds of GUI helper bins/libs, worked for me, I prefer KDE, running kde-standard on top of a bare bones Debian 7.3, my Iceweasel looks pretty and works fantastic, sometimes newer isn't always better. Just my $0.02

Speaking of search engines, I wish somebody would remove Google from Iceweasel, they are the biggest digital underwear sniffing offenders, I use DuckDuckGo and Startpage, yeah, I know Startpage uses Google as an engine but at least they don't record your traffic or IP.