Update firefox to newest version in Linux

Question

The newest version of Firefox is not showing in the software package manager so I went to the website and downloaded it. After uncompressing it, there isn't a makefile. It looks like this can be run straight from the directory, but I want to instead update the current version I have so that all the files get moved to the correct places. How can this be done?

Answer 1

I don't know about Ubuntu, but in Opensuse one can add the Buildservice repository for Mozilla, which is used by the people behind the distro for their development and testing and always has the most up to date version.

Ubuntu must do a similar thing, so try having a look at what additional repositories are available.

edit: I'm not sure that it is the same sort of thing, but here is how you do it.

Answer 2

You can't (easily) have it both ways. Either you stick to what Ubuntu provides, which may be an older version, or you take what Mozilla provides, which may not be packaged in the way you expect.

There may be something wrong with your package manager setup, but it's hard to to tell without more details. Worst case, you can manually download the package from http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/firefox. Check that you have security updates activated in your package manager.

Answer 3

If you install Firefox from a package manager such as debian or rpm chances are high you will only receive security updates but not new minor revisions.

You need to download Firefox from Mozilla; it should be in tgz format. You do not need to compile Firefox as it is already compiled. cp the extracted contents to /opt/. Then make a sym link to the executable shell script. Then and only then will you be using the Firefox that can receive updates from Mozilla

Answer 4

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ubuntuzilla/index.php?title=Main_Page

This is the home of the Ubuntuzilla project, hosts an Ubuntu repository with .deb repacks of the latest official release versions of Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla SeaMonkey, and Mozilla Thunderbird. This repository should also work on Linux distributions that are derivatives of Ubuntu, and probably also on any Debian derivative.

It basically is a repository that will keep you Mozilla products up to the date, including minor releases.

Answer 5

Check that you have updated the package lists using "sudo aptitude update". This will ensure you have the latest list of packages. Then update the packages using "sudo aptitude upgrade". You can use apt-get instead of aptitutde.

Due to the way debian based systems manage patches you don't always get a version upgrade. Check the change log in the package directory under /usr/share/doc. In this case /usr/share/doc/firefox.

I show firefox-3.5 including version 3.6.8 changes.

Ensure that security patches are enabled. /etc/apt/sources should contain the following lines near the bottom of the file.

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse

Answer 6

I found an easy solultion. I just download the package from the website and unarchived it to my Linux desktop. There is an executable script file called firefox. If I run that, then Firefox starts up. All my settings and bookmarks are there. If I check the version, it's the newest version.