Convert Microsoft to LINUX: Install Firefox Browser

This is another great browser. I use it on my MAC and Linux systems and love it. It is far superior to the built in Konqueror browser that comes with most Linux systems. You can even install it in Microsoft Windows operating systems!

Go to Firefox Download Site Instructions You will be asked what is your version of Linux, MAC or Windows. Please select the appropiate one. Note, if you are using Ubuntu it comes with a built in Firefox usually at a much lower version than the current one available. This is now version 3.55 as of December 1, 2009. To install do the following:

  1. Go to a terminal prompt and type sudo su followed by your password.
  2. You should now be at a root prompt. Remove the current version of Firefox by typing
    apt-get remove firefox
    Note, I assume you are using Ubuntu here. Otherwise type the appropriate remove command.
  3. If you are using Ubuntu just type:
    apt-get install firefox-3.5
  4. Otherwise, download and save the appropriate tarball to your desktop, ie:
    /home/user1/Desktop/firefox-3.55-tar.bz2
  5. Untar the tarball with the following two commands in your Desktop directory:
    bzip2 -d firefox-3.55-tar.bz2
    tar -xvf firefox-3.55.tar
    This will create a firefox directory under your Desktop directory. Note, your version names may differ. You must first unzip the binary zip2 file of extension .bz2 and then untar the tarball you get in two seperate steps.
  6. I assume you are using a 64 bit laptop and have a directory of /usr/lib64/firefox . This is the default directory. Now we need to synchronize this directory. Here I will assume you want to overwrite it. Do this by typing:
    rsync -a --delete /home/user1/Desktop/firefox/ /usr/lib64/firefox
  7. To test type
    cd /usr/lib/firefox
    ./firefox
    Firefox should now launch. When you click on help about it should say it is version 42.
  8. You want to go to directory /usr/bin at a terminal prompt and make sure firefox has a symbolic link:

    victor@victor-900HA:/usr/bin$ ls -al firefox
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Nov 18 08:46 firefox -> ../lib64/firefox/firefox
    victor@victor-900HA:/usr/bin$

    if the link is not there type:
    ln -s ../lib64/firefox/firefox firefox
    Sometimes there may be a mistaken link linking to firefox.bin or firefox.sh instead. You can simply remove the link in the /usr/bin directory with:
    rm firefox
    You may get prompted and asked if this is ok, then recreate the link as above.
  9. One last gotcha . This one stumped me for 3 hours. You may sometimes find that all of a sudden the ability to search on the web in the location/address bar is gone. To fix this type at the address bar:
    about:congig
    At the search type keyword
    Click on toggle to set keyword.enabled = true
    Now you will be able to search in the location bar. It seems like in version 43 of Firefox, this defaulted to false and messed everything up.

Installing Flash Adobe Plugin

First check your current version of plugins by typing:
about:plugins
at the http address line on Firefox.

To install the latest flash plugin go to the adobe website and grab the tarball. Then do the folowing:
tar -zxvf install_adobe_flash.gz
sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
sudo mv lifflashplayer.so /usr/lib/adobe-flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so
Note, one of the two mv statements above will work. If you do not have a
adobe-flash-plugin directory just use the first one please.

Be Careful about installing Plugins

Warning, please be real careful about installing addons! I installed the ICQ add on from Facebook and it wants you to use its search engine and its address bar to get to a website. After removing the addon and reinstalling Firefox, I still had the same problem. It is in some config file some where but I could not find it. The solution was to totally remove Firefox, i.e. not just apt-get remove firefox-3.5 but also at the command terminal line:
rm -R /usr/share/firefox
rm -R /usr/lib/firefox
rm -R /root/.mozilla/
rm -R /home/victor/.mozilla/

Enjoy!