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* [[irc://irc.debian.org/debian-mozilla|#debian-mozilla]] [[IRC]] channel |
Translation(s): English - Italiano - Русский - Español
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.
Contents
Installing Firefox
From Debian packages
On DebianStable, Install the firefox-esr package.
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:
- Download the Firefox version you want directly from the official website
- Uncompress the archives:
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)
[Desktop Entry] Name=Firefox Stable Comment=Web Browser Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox %u Terminal=false Type=Application Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png Categories=Network;WebBrowser; MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https; StartupNotify=true
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
Using flatpak
Unofficial builds are provided by Fedora at https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/
sudo apt install flatpak sudo flatpak remote-add --from gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/gnome.flatpakrepo sudo flatpak remote-add --from org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo.flatpakrepo
Then for "developer edition" (aka "beta"):
flatpak install org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo org.mozilla.FirefoxDevEdition
and running:
flatpak run org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo org.mozilla.FirefoxNightly
For "nightlies" (aka "alpha"):
flatpak install org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo org.mozilla.FirefoxNightly
And running:
flatpak run org.mozilla.FirefoxRepo org.mozilla.FirefoxNightly
There are no stable builds for Firefox in Flatpak yet, see this bug report for details.
See also the FlatpakHowto.
Using snap
Mozilla provides an official Snap package for Firefox:
sudo apt install snapd sudo snap install firefox snap run firefox
Several Firefox Versions
Note: Debian (...,8=jessie,9=stretch) delivers an own password manager and syncs it _NOT_ with the default Firefox implementation.
When using several installations keep in mind that all passwords do not exists for the other Firefox Versions. (Hacks are possible for some Versions. E.g: Symlinks to the master password files if the software stucture hasn't changed!)
When using *.desktop files to start a different version you need to extend your profiles.ini and extend the .desktop file to get it work.
Example of a $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini file eg using also Firefox 39.0.0 (Downloaded and extracted in: $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-39-0-0.ext) :
[General] StartWithLastProfile=1 [Profile0] Name=default IsRelative=1 Path=a1b2c3d4e5f6.default Default=1 [Profile1] Name=39-0-0 IsRelative=1 Path=firefox-39-0-0.ext
Example of a .desktop file for the 39.0.0 Version :
[Desktop Entry] Name=Firefox '39.0.0' Comment=Web Browser GenericName=Web Browser X-GNOME-FullName=Firefox '39.0.0' Web Browser Exec=/home/YOUR-USERNAME/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-39-0-0.ext/firefox -P 39-0-0 --new-instance %u Terminal=false X-MultipleArgs=false Type=Application Icon=/home/YOUR-USERNAME/.mozilla/firefox/firefox-39-0-0.ext/your-icon.png Categories=Network;WebBrowser; MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https; StartupWMClass=Firefox StartupNotify=true
The secrets are:
The shell arguments of each Firefox installation to be veryfied first and to be set to the desktop file. After starting a different version the very first time: Yo must disable the automated update to keep the selected version (Even with security holes of that version).
In german language but code snipets are transparent: Detailed alternative guide
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:
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 |
The above list 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.
A machine-readable version of the above can be copy-pasted at will in your user.js from Anarcat's firefox-tmp script.
TorBrowser does something similar and we should look at their user.js to see if there's anything relevant here. Alternatively, one can just directly use TorBrowser instead, of course.
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)
Iceweasel
From Debian Etch through Debian Jessie (9th June 2016), Mozilla Firefox was not available in Debian with the official name or branding. Instead, a free-software version rebranded by Debian, named Iceweasel was provided. This for had the following goals:
Backporting of security fixes to DebianStable
- No inclusion of trademarked Mozilla artwork
Starting in DebianStretch, the iceweasel package is now a transitional package for firefox-esr. Normal Debian support policies, including patches for bug fixes, apply to the package.
http://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
See also
FlashPlayer - Adobe Flash Player
External links
https://www.firefox.com/ - Firefox Homepage
https://mozilla.debian.net/ - Debian Mozilla Team
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firefox - Firefox - Arch Wiki
https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pkg-mozilla-maintainers - pkg-mozilla-maintainers mailing list
#debian-mozilla IRC channel