Recently, I found myself needing the latest Firefox version, specifically version 115, for its GPU accelerated video capabilities. My machine isn’t the most powerful, so this feature was a game-changer for me. With previous Firefox versions, I was limited to 1080p for smooth video playback or could manage 1440p, but with occasional stuttering. Even worse, my computer would become extremely sluggish during this.
However, with Firefox v115, I can now smoothly run 4K video at 10% CPU utilization (max) without any issues. Even 8k is smooth, though CPU usage jumps to 80%+.
didn’t want to remove Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), so I decided to install the latest Firefox version alongside the default ESR.
Here are the commands I used to install the latest Firefox version:
cd /opt
# Download the latest version of Firefox
sudo wget -O firefox.tar.bz2 "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest&os=linux64&lang=en-US"
sudo tar xjf firefox.tar.bz2
# Create a symbolic link
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
# Create a desktop entry for GNOME
echo -e '[Desktop Entry]\n Version=1.0\n Name=firefox\n Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox\n Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png\n Type=Application\n Categories=Application' | sudo tee /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop
Additionally, I wanted to easily differentiate between the two Firefox versions on my machine. To do this, I created a .icons directory in my home directory and downloaded an appealing Firefox PNG icon from here.
I then updated the icon line in /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop to use my newly downloaded icon. Now, I can easily distinguish between the two versions at a glance.
You can alternatively install it via Flatpack with GNOME Software:
apt install flatpak
apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
reboot
And then open the GNOME store “store” and search for Firefox, you’ll find the Flathub version.
This won’t work as expected, I don’t think?
Unless you installed the developer edition, which uses a separate profile/path, both of your installs will use the ~/.mozilla directory, so configs and profile of your new install will interfere with the ESR version.
(and why did you symlink /opt/firefox/firefox to /usr/bin/firefox? The desktop file already takes care of recognition)
I guess FF is available as flatpack. But it still use your ~/.config. I would just run it out of docker. But not sure what will happen with acceleration.
you can install as many firefox instances you like by downloading and extracting the tarball and by running a script (suppose firefox clone is extracted in ~/firefox-clone)
#!/bin/sh
HOME=$(pwd)
firefox --no-remote
saving as firefox-clone.sh and running it inside firefox-clone directory.