HowTo Install the Latest Firefox in Ubuntu (Ultimate HowTo)

[jvnn]

I'm having problems with flash too.

[kyutums]

I followed the instructions with a new install of Ubuntu 5.10. Firefox works quite well now. However, my bookmarks don't get saved. When I place a bookmark, it's not there anymore when I close and start Firefox again. Any tips on how I can resolve this?

[steveneddy]

Nope. It's not recommended, since you risk changing the ownership of your extensions to "root".

The correct way is to start Firefox both times with

sudo firefox -safe-mode

so that no extensions will be loaded.

You are right, in that the update can be done otherwise and through Firefox' menus. But Fireupdate is for all the users who don't want to use a terminal or remember to start Firefox two times as root. Rather they should just click on an icon and be done.

I stand corrected, thank you.

[steveneddy]

Did you mean Help Menu item or Help Tab?

I didn't see a Help Tab, and I didn't see a (button?) on the Help Menu. I did see such a choice in the Edit / Preferences / Advanced menu, but it did not return any updates: Firefox was not able to find any available updates.

This is with the Firefox 1.0.7 version that is installed by default on 5.10.

OK....Click "Help" and then Click "Check for updates". Does it need to get any easier. And whats the difference anyway. It is a button, no matter what it looks like.

[Sokraates]

There is a difference between a menu-option and a tab. Anyway, funchords' problem was, that he didn't have FF 1.5 installed in the first place.

[Sokraates]

It looks as if the permissions or the ownership have been changed. Take a look at bookmarks.html (I believe thats the name) in your profile. If the ownership is set to "root", change it with

sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername ~/.mozilla/firefox/yourprofile

This will affect the whole profile, since usually a few files are changed.

If you don't have write-permission, type

sudo chmod 660 ~/.mozilla/firefox/yourprofile/bookmarks.html

This command will only affect the bookmark-file.

[Benchrest]

Sorry if this has already been addressed, (i read the first 8 pages and probasbly should read the rest) but I installed Firefox 1.5 last night on my laptop. The reason I did was I have FF 1.5 on our other operating system and my wife loves it with a particular theme. The Theme is only availible on 1.5 . I thought it would be good to make Ubuntu look the same for her, besides it being faster. First time I installed it, the firefox command from terminal was not recognized. I backed up through my commands and found a typo. Then it started once, but not again even after reboot it said firefox was already running and I had to stop it before restarting. After some looking I could not find the error so I started the install from after downloading the tar. This time it works. But I could not restore my saved bookmarks etc. Said it could find the file on the desktop. I was looking at my desktop folder and clicked on the ff* folder (don't remember the exact name.) and all of a sudden like I was clicking on things my desktop icons started disappearing one at a time untill they were mostly gone including my FF folder. Not in the trash bin Don't know what happened, but I would guess the directions were ok, just I had to many typo's and something else?

Anyway my question is, would it be possible when a person creates a write up on how to install ff or any other product, a command file of some kind could be created that us senile old folks could down load with all the commands I had to type?Would minimize finger checks and make the installation easier like for that other operating system. I realise it would work if a person had modified their system but most of us that don't know much are pretty stock. Just an idea. It will be tomorrow night before I get back to the laptop, will try to read more post before then.

[Xilon]

I followed through the steps and it worked great!!... the second time , but now the Package Manager wants me to "update" to the 1.0.7 ubuntu version... any ideas how to get rid of this? (I'm pretty new to ubuntu btw)

Edit: Seems like some dependencies are broken... ubuntu-desktop, yelp etc need firefox and it shows up as uninstalled

[towsonu2003]

Seems like some dependencies are broken... ubuntu-desktop, yelp etc need firefox and it shows up as uninstalled

I would say first do these:

cp .mozilla/firefox .mozilla/firefox.backup
# First, /usr/bin/firefox
sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/bin/firefox
# Then, /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox, used as the default gnome browser
sudo rm /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

then let the package manager download firefox 1.0.7 and install it. firefox shouldn't be removed.

then do these:

# First, /usr/bin/firefox
sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
# Then, /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox, used as the default gnome browser
sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox

don't launch firefox in the process. This should fix it, as you will have firefox 1.0.7 installed (for dependencies) as well as 1.5 default browser (for enjoyment).

PS. Almost all commands are from the wiki page.

[Xilon]

I think it worked, thanks a lot!