Firefox Developer Edition and Beta: Try Out Mozilla's .deb Package | Hacker News Reader

Firefox Developer Edition and Beta: Try Out Mozilla's .deb Package

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72 pointsfeross42 comments

If you want to be able to edit your add-ons/extensions you'll want the unbranded builds instead: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Unbranded...

Just watch out that Mozilla has disabled updates in these builds so you have to manually download for each new version/security fix.

The normal Firefox releases (except for the unstable alpha/aurora/developer version) don't allow you to edit your extensions without getting permission for each change from Mozilla's security theater automated signing portal.

>Mozilla has disabled updates in these builds so you have to manually download for each new version/security fix

Super easy and totally reasonable, thanks Mozilla

wth? Why would you do this, Mozilla? My Windows Nightly updates all the time and it works well?! (same for dev, which I used before)

That direct download is literally just a binary - no repository is setup.

Ah. Thanks. That clears it up, my fault.

I'm still pissed that I have to use Developer Edition to be able to install add-ons that weren't signed by Mozilla.

I get it from a "users are dumb" and cybersecurity aspect of it.

Which addons do you use that arent in the Firefox store?

It's interesting because i sideload APKs all the time on androis, but can't remember the last time wanted/needed to do it on firefox

Those that "aren't monitored by Mozilla so be careful" (pretty much all of them) which obviously means one should build it from the published sources oneself rather than downloading a pre-built package.

All the popular ones are all Mozilla monitored, so I don’t agree that pretty much all of them aren’t.

Personally I don’t touch unmonitored addons anyway. There have been incidents of developers selling their Addon to some dodgy buyers who then started abusing it.

Is there a clear guide as to what differs between Developer Edition and regular Firefox? The home-page for the Developer Edition project seems to mostly cite the inclusion of devtools, though these are of course present in the standard version.

Originally it was called the "alpha" build if that wording makes more sense to you. Over the years it's been renamed to "aurora" and now finally "developer". But the gist is that it is an alpha with all that implies. I would not use developer for my daily driver.

I've used it as my daily driver for a very long time. It's very stable and think based on beta given the version number.

> All the latest developer tools in beta, plus experimental features like the Multi-line Console Editor and WebSocket Inspector. (from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/)

This is the biggest difference: Beta dev tool and experimental features.

That must be pretty outdated, because I'm on Firefox ESR and I have used the multi-line console editor and WebSocket inspector.

The multi-line console editor is already on stable for me, at least. It's quite good; definitely recommend trying it out.

I use the two just for mental separation between work and personal. You can use tab containers etc but it’s nice have a different icon and app.

I really wish Firefox had the equivalent of Chromium's profile manager instead of having to rely on passing in command line parameters to force the profile selector to appear on start.

Easily selecting an entirely separate profile from within the browser just seems like the right way to handle this from a UX perspective.

I don't know when it appeared, but navigating to about:profiles shows

- Create a New Profile

- a list of the existing profiles

- - for each one of those, a "Launch profile in a New Browser" button for any one that isn't already running

along with "Rename" and "Remove" buttons, so that feels about as full-featured a management screen as one could ask for. The only(?) user-hostile behavior is having to know that about: URL

I think I’ve seen a way to expose this within the UI, maybe it was through an add on. If I find it later I’ll update my comment.

* May have been remembering this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...

You can configure developer edition to install unsigned addons.

Developer edition is dark mode by default and updates way more often than standard Firefox.

Besides that I'm not really sure.

It tracks the beta channel, and has a few different defaults.

Nice!

Where can the .deb files for beta be seen in a browsebale repo?

This one can't be browsed: https://packages.mozilla.org/apt

UPDATE:

Found it here: https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/121.0b5/lin...

UPDATE 2:

Hmm, the annoying thing is that beta package creates firefox-beta symlink instead of firefox symlink.

Also, why is it packaged in /usr/lib/firefox-beta?

/usr/lib is a weird location for it. Keeping it in /opt makes more sense.

so if I want to avoid godawful snaps on Ubuntu with minimal fuss I need to use one of these?

Like 7 years ago I just went to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ and hit "Download". I got like a tar archive that I uncompressed into ~/firefox. Made a short cut to it on my tool bar. It has been auto updating fine ever since.

I did that as well, but it also means that the binaries can be modified by an exploit (running as a regular user). It's not a huge difference with the deb, but still, it's a small additional layer of security.

That's a pretty lousy take. Obviously, stuff that executes as your user act on your user data. Why would you even have a line of code that you don't trust on your machine? `chown` it if you care that much.

Also, to the parent comment -- you should be putting stuff in ~/.local anyway, not in the top-level home directory.

Does this work? Coworker of mine tried to replace the snap and said that Ubuntu removed the non-snap and installed the snap again. Or does it work because it's beta/dev?

(To add to this: Snap can go and die in the deepest layers of hell. What an awful "we have to be special" piece of 'technology')

This will make mozillateam's repo preferred over default "snapified":

   $ cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox-ppa-pin-400 
   Package: \*
   Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
   Pin-Priority: 900

Thanks!

You can install it from their binary releases: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...

I think if you do the "system" install, it won't be able to update itself, but the user install will be able to.

There's also a PPA: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

Though you'll have to convince Ubuntu to prefer that instead of the snap. It's not hard, certainly easier than installing Debian which is probably still what I should have done. I think I used this guide: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d...

Though what that doesn't tell you is that the snap install has its own profile folder location. So before you switch to one of the other install variants, note the location in about:support and make a copy of the folder. Running snap remove firefox will actually create a backup of the folder (unless you add --purge, so don't), which really saved my ass.

thanks, I'll give the user install a try

Skip Snaps and just run the AppImage for Librewolf here[0]. I like the way Librewolf removes all the telemetry crap and hardens the browser.

[0] https://librewolf.net/installation/linux/

That would do it, or do this: https://www.mikekasberg.com/blog/2022/03/21/how-to-fix-firef...

Yeah, or you switch over to Linux Mint and get a snap-free Ubuntu-based distro.

You can easily remove snapd:

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/snap-remove-disable

Or use one of the 500 linux distros out there or build your own.

Linux doesnt force you to use one path. My reply is not meant to sarcastic I am just bringing to your attention that you absolutely have alternatives, because linux is cool - ubuntu included.

I thought they were going the snap route because it saved packaging time but now they’re introducing another .deb? Perhaps a change of strategy?

According to some anonymous HN(?) comments, it was a lie told by Ubuntu that Mozilla prefers to ship Firefox as a snap package for technical reasons.

Related thread from a couple weeks ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38097858 ("Mozilla treats Debian devotees to the raw taste of Firefox Nightly (theregister.com)", 103 comments)

Two of my favorite organizations working directly together.

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