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I don't understand why Firefox doesn't include an option to download the .deb package instead of tar file for Ubuntu and Debian during release announcements. Th

I don't understand why Firefox doesn't include an option to download the .deb package instead of tar file for Ubuntu and Debian during release announcements. The market share is already shrinking and why make it harder for people to install or upgrade Firefox? Chrome does it. Why can't Firefox do that as well?

afroboy 8y ago
You can update easily Firefox from tar file, it has local updates no need for official repository.
reidrac 8y ago
I'm just guessing here, but Chrome is not packaged by the distro whilst Firefox is. Personally I like the tar. That's my preferred way to use Firefox in Debian. I untar on ~/apps/firefox, symlink to my ~/bin and it is ready to go. The auto-update of Firefox works perfect, so I don't need to use Debian packages for that.
brobdingnagians 8y ago
This brings up an interesting point about releasing software in general. If you spend huge amounts of time programming cool things and tuning every last knob, but then it is difficult for your average user to find out how to install and start to see all the cool things you've produced, when it would take far less time to just make an easy installer than it took you to make all the cool things, then there needs to be some balance in usability. The pipeline to getting the software in front of someone is sometimes more important than adding new cool features. A basic thing that is easy to use will get more adoption than a mind-blowingly awesome thing that only sys-admins can figure out how to use.
- daleharvey 8y ago
  "Ubuntu and Debian" "average user" I dont disagree with your point, not sure it is relevant however.
  - vishnu_ks 8y ago
    hmm. I upgrade my VSCode pretty much all the time they do a release because they provide a .deb file. Installing the upgrade is as simple as double-clicking on the file. I am sure pretty much all the users of Ubuntu and Debian are capable of doing a Firefox upgrade if they really wanted to. But no harm in making it easier.
    - daleharvey 8y ago
      Yup I wasnt saying we shouldnt provide .deb files, I dont know why we dont and sounds like a perfectly reasonable request. I was just replying to the comment making a point about being accessible to the average user, the average user of Firefox is not manually installing updates on Ubuntu
      - brobdingnagians 8y ago
        Hehe, point taken. That's the paretto principle too, spending a bunch of time on a small segment of your users wouldn't make much sense either, especially since most of them are fully capable of working with the system as it is. Also, since it updates in place anyways, which is nifty, I guess this comment mainly applies to other software I've used which is a royal pain to install...
        vishnu_ks 8y ago
        I think they should at least do some A/B testing on whether including a .deb package increases the downloads or upgrades significantly to justify the time and cost.
    - kylegordon 8y ago
      I have an older friend who used Ubuntu on his laptop, as he had never used Windows and just wanted a simple web browsing capable laptop (before the days of Chromebooks) The number of times I've discovered umpteen copies of Firefox tarballs on his desktop, and every time he complains it's been a pain to 'upgrade Firefox' Sure, I could have done more handholding, but yes, Firefox could certainly have made it easier back then and still today.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Which would be a valid point, if Mozilla's definition of "every last knob" didn't include such basic features as "customizable keyboard shortcuts" and "allowing unsigned side-loading of addons", which the product already had for the 15 years ending 2016.
swebs 8y ago
Why not just use apt? It's already updated in the repository.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  This may require updating your distribution.
  - Zardoz84 8y ago
    and why hell do you keep updated your os ? I do a apt upgrade every week, and everything works fine.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      I meant doing dist-upgrade, not apt upgrade.
sigjuice 8y ago
Untar anywhere you like and run it from there. I recommend the home directory. You don’t even have to become root. This copy of Firefox should also update itself automatically.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  It would be fantastic if this were more like .app bundles on macOS. It’s a special, self-contained folder that GUIs treat as the application binary (double click to launch, etc) but that power users can open as a folder or navigate inside of using a shell. Then again, I though AppImage was supposed to be something like this?
reddotX 8y ago
just use the .snap package (they have all firefox channels as snaps stable, candidate, beta, edge) channels: stable: 64.0.2-1 2019-01-10 (167) 216MB - candidate: 65.0-2 2019-01-28 (172) 217MB - beta: 66.0b3-1 2019-01-28 (173) 217MB - edge: 63.0b13-1 2018-10-09 (140) 206MB - esr/stable: 60.5.0esr-2 2019-01-28 (171) 213MB - snap install firefox
geofft 8y ago
If you install Firefox from the tarball, it a) doesn't require root permissions and b) autoupdates in place, so I think it's easier to install and upgrade than if you got it from a .deb. (Chrome's .deb includes configuration to add Chrome's apt repository; I'm not sure if Firefox's does.)
bepvte 8y ago
i hide my Tars in a ~/.opt/ directory, because i dont want to mess with root owned dirs but i also dont want an ugly home directory. as well, i prefer the tars bc the updates are fast and in the background, and get updated faster then packages.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
Rather than a .deb, provide a PPA.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Dunno whether the Debian/Ubuntu team does anything with the packages, but on Fedora at least, the Firefox RPM usually gets held for a few days so that the Fedora QA team can do their own testing before releasing the package to the public.
jcastro 8y ago
For 95% of users "just leave your Firefox alone you'll get an update in a day or two" is fine.
saghm 8y ago
Out of curiosity, don't most systems that use .deb files already have Firefox in the package manager? I was under the impression that Debian now has mainline Firefox (instead of Iceweasel) as of a few years ago
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  Yes, but if you’re not running either the most recent version of a Debian-based OS, you either have to hope there’s a version in the backports repo or potentially break your installation through a diet-upgrade. Getting the version from the vendor can be more ideal, since there’s no dependency on one party to keep another party’s software up to date, especially where distribution versions are concerned.
fulafel 8y ago
This would not get automatic updates and would be bad for security.

afroboy 8y ago

You can update easily Firefox from tar file, it has local updates no need for official repository.

reidrac 8y ago

I'm just guessing here, but Chrome is not packaged by the distro whilst Firefox is. Personally I like the tar. That's my preferred way to use Firefox in Debian. I untar on ~/apps/firefox, symlink to my ~/bin and it is ready to go. The auto-update of Firefox works perfect, so I don't need to use Debian packages for that.

brobdingnagians 8y ago

This brings up an interesting point about releasing software in general. If you spend huge amounts of time programming cool things and tuning every last knob, but then it is difficult for your average user to find out how to install and start to see all the cool things you've produced, when it would take far less time to just make an easy installer than it took you to make all the cool things, then there needs to be some balance in usability. The pipeline to getting the software in front of someone is sometimes more important than adding new cool features. A basic thing that is easy to use will get more adoption than a mind-blowingly awesome thing that only sys-admins can figure out how to use.

daleharvey 8y ago
"Ubuntu and Debian" "average user" I dont disagree with your point, not sure it is relevant however.
- vishnu_ks 8y ago
  hmm. I upgrade my VSCode pretty much all the time they do a release because they provide a .deb file. Installing the upgrade is as simple as double-clicking on the file. I am sure pretty much all the users of Ubuntu and Debian are capable of doing a Firefox upgrade if they really wanted to. But no harm in making it easier.
  - daleharvey 8y ago
    Yup I wasnt saying we shouldnt provide .deb files, I dont know why we dont and sounds like a perfectly reasonable request. I was just replying to the comment making a point about being accessible to the average user, the average user of Firefox is not manually installing updates on Ubuntu
    - brobdingnagians 8y ago
      Hehe, point taken. That's the paretto principle too, spending a bunch of time on a small segment of your users wouldn't make much sense either, especially since most of them are fully capable of working with the system as it is. Also, since it updates in place anyways, which is nifty, I guess this comment mainly applies to other software I've used which is a royal pain to install...
      - vishnu_ks 8y ago
        I think they should at least do some A/B testing on whether including a .deb package increases the downloads or upgrades significantly to justify the time and cost.
  - kylegordon 8y ago
    I have an older friend who used Ubuntu on his laptop, as he had never used Windows and just wanted a simple web browsing capable laptop (before the days of Chromebooks) The number of times I've discovered umpteen copies of Firefox tarballs on his desktop, and every time he complains it's been a pain to 'upgrade Firefox' Sure, I could have done more handholding, but yes, Firefox could certainly have made it easier back then and still today.
SilasX 8y ago
Which would be a valid point, if Mozilla's definition of "every last knob" didn't include such basic features as "customizable keyboard shortcuts" and "allowing unsigned side-loading of addons", which the product already had for the 15 years ending 2016.

swebs 8y ago

Why not just use apt? It's already updated in the repository.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
This may require updating your distribution.
- Zardoz84 8y ago
  and why hell do you keep updated your os ? I do a apt upgrade every week, and everything works fine.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    I meant doing dist-upgrade, not apt upgrade.

sigjuice 8y ago

Untar anywhere you like and run it from there. I recommend the home directory. You don’t even have to become root. This copy of Firefox should also update itself automatically.

zapzupnz 8y ago
It would be fantastic if this were more like .app bundles on macOS. It’s a special, self-contained folder that GUIs treat as the application binary (double click to launch, etc) but that power users can open as a folder or navigate inside of using a shell. Then again, I though AppImage was supposed to be something like this?

reddotX 8y ago

just use the .snap package (they have all firefox channels as snaps stable, candidate, beta, edge) channels: stable: 64.0.2-1 2019-01-10 (167) 216MB - candidate: 65.0-2 2019-01-28 (172) 217MB - beta: 66.0b3-1 2019-01-28 (173) 217MB - edge: 63.0b13-1 2018-10-09 (140) 206MB - esr/stable: 60.5.0esr-2 2019-01-28 (171) 213MB - snap install firefox

geofft 8y ago

If you install Firefox from the tarball, it a) doesn't require root permissions and b) autoupdates in place, so I think it's easier to install and upgrade than if you got it from a .deb. (Chrome's .deb includes configuration to add Chrome's apt repository; I'm not sure if Firefox's does.)

bepvte 8y ago

i hide my Tars in a ~/.opt/ directory, because i dont want to mess with root owned dirs but i also dont want an ugly home directory. as well, i prefer the tars bc the updates are fast and in the background, and get updated faster then packages.

AsyncAwait 8y ago

Rather than a .deb, provide a PPA.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Dunno whether the Debian/Ubuntu team does anything with the packages, but on Fedora at least, the Firefox RPM usually gets held for a few days so that the Fedora QA team can do their own testing before releasing the package to the public.

jcastro 8y ago

For 95% of users "just leave your Firefox alone you'll get an update in a day or two" is fine.

saghm 8y ago

Out of curiosity, don't most systems that use .deb files already have Firefox in the package manager? I was under the impression that Debian now has mainline Firefox (instead of Iceweasel) as of a few years ago

zapzupnz 8y ago
Yes, but if you’re not running either the most recent version of a Debian-based OS, you either have to hope there’s a version in the backports repo or potentially break your installation through a diet-upgrade. Getting the version from the vendor can be more ideal, since there’s no dependency on one party to keep another party’s software up to date, especially where distribution versions are concerned.

fulafel 8y ago

This would not get automatic updates and would be bad for security.