Install Firefox on Linux
Getting Firefox installed on your computer is your first step to using it. This article will show you how to install Firefox on Linux. For other operating systems, see Install Firefox on Windows and Install Firefox on Mac.
Many Linux distributions include Firefox by default, and most have a package management system that lets you easily install Firefox. Generally, you should install from package management. Package management will:
- Ensure that you have all the required libraries
- Install Firefox in a way that works best with your distribution
- Create shortcuts to launch Firefox
- Make Firefox available to all users of your computer
- Make removing Firefox work the same as removing any other application
Package management also has some downsides:
- It may not give you the latest version of Firefox
- It may give you a version without Firefox branding
Installing from a package manager
To install Firefox using the package manager, please refer to the documentation of the Linux distribution you're using.
Installing outside of a package manager
Complete instructions for installing Firefox outside of package management may be available at your distribution's support website. For example:
- Before you install Firefox, make sure that your computer has the required libraries installed. Missing libraries will cause Firefox to be inoperable.
- The installation file provided by Mozilla in .tar.bz2 format does not contain sources but pre-compiled binary files, therefore you can simply unpack and run them. There is no need to compile the program from source.
- The following instructions will install Firefox into your home directory, and only the current user will be able to run it.
- Download Firefox from the Firefox download page to your home directory.
- Open a Terminal and go to your home directory:
- Extract the contents of the downloaded file:
tar xjf firefox-*.tar.bz2
- Close Firefox if it's open.
- To start Firefox, run the firefox script in the firefox folder:
Firefox should now start. You can then create an icon on your desktop to run this command.
As noted above, you need to install the required libraries for Firefox to work. Many distributions don't include libstdc++5 by default.
"firefox not installed" message or wrong version of Firefox starts
If Firefox is installed following the instructions given above, it must be started (in a Terminal or in a launcher on the Desktop, for example) using the command:
If you try to start Firefox in a Terminal with the command:
firefox, it will either start the package-manager-installed version of Firefox or will tell you the program is not installed.
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