Ubuntu Tutorial: manually install any version of Firefox in Ubuntu

Firefox is the main web browser in Ubuntu. It is pre-installed in the system and added to the default Ubuntu software library to get the latest version of Firefox for automatic updates.

Most users do not need to worry about installing or using Firefox, because there is no problem, it has been installed and can be used. You always get the version of Firefox in the Ubuntu software library, unless you update the Canonical software to the latest version.

Now, if you want to try another Firefox version, you must manually download it and install it in Ubuntu. This short tutorial will guide you how to do this correctly in Ubuntu.

Because Firefox is integrated into Ubuntu. If you try to uninstall it completely, it may destroy other things. Therefore, the best way to install other versions is to create folders for each version and connect them with symbols.

Download and install Firefox in Ubuntu

If you want to manually download the latest Firefox version in Ubuntu, go to its download page. You can get the latest version and install it.

If you want to install Firefox of another version from the initial version, visit this page. You will see each version starting from 0.8.

After downloading the desired version, switch to the download folder under the home Directory, because most Ubuntu files are downloaded here.

cd ~/Downloads

Configure Firefox

Because most Firefox download files are saved in .tar.bz2 format, files must be extracted from these packages. There are many ways to decompress files in Ubuntu.

For example, the following command is used. It is easy to extract files from .tar.bz2.

1. Tar-xjf firefox * .tar.bz2

After decompression, a new Firefox file will appear in the download folder. This includes all Firefox files and executable files.

Because we do not want to delete the currently installed Firefox, we must create a separate folder for each version of Firefox. Therefore, for Firefox version 30, use the following command to create a folder containing the new Firefox content in the/opt directory.

1. Sudo mv firefox // opt/firefox30

Now, all files in the/opt/firefox30/directory are of version 30.

Create a new Firefox executable Symbolic Link

By default, the executable file of Firefox is in this path:/user/bin/firefox. What we want to do is to create a temporary backup so that we can use our custom installation executable file.

To do this, run the following command.

1. Sudo mv/usr/bin/firefox-old

Now, we have moved the Firefox executable file from its default location. We must link the default location to our new custom installation file. To do this, run the following command to create a symbolic link of version 30.

1. Sudo ln-s/opt/firefox30/firefox/usr/bin/firefox

In this way, the configuration is complete. The customized Firefox installation is the default for Ubuntu. Each time Firefox is started, it loads a new executable file through a new link.

The preceding method is also applicable to 64-bit Firefox.

Firefox details: click here
Firefox: click here

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