I've run a Debian desktop system for the past decade (and more!) and for the past few years there's been a handful of packages I install from binaries/source lo

I've run a Debian desktop system for the past decade (and more!) and for the past few years there's been a handful of packages I install from binaries/source locally. Having an up to date browser matters to me more than almost every other package. So I install the binary beneath /opt/firefox, and update it myself whenever a new release comes out. (I even created a simple "firefox-wrapper" package to point to the binary, and provide firefox to avoid any dependency issues and avoid the need to install two versions). Otherwise I think calibre, the arduino IDE, and the go toolchain, are the only binaries I've got deployed beneath /opt, as they have historically churned a lot too.