Linux (Pop-OS) Update Documentation for Firefox DEVELOPER edition outdated / incorrect

Firefox Development
#1

I am on Pop-OS and have downloaded and installed firefox developer edition (formerly aurora) under /opt/firefox. Note, the PPA for aurora is outdated and no longer works (to my knowledge).

Now firefox developer edition is saying there is an update. So I followed this link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/update-firefox-latest-release
which shows how firefox should auto-update itself. However, on linux this is not the case. Instead I have to follow the link which instead of showing me the update file, only lets me download all of firefox again.

There has to be a better way to update firefox developer edition on linux, than downloading and extracting it to /opt/firefox every single time.

#2

Hi @sumneuron. Thank you for making us aware of that - this is something that I pick up and arrange for it to be corrected.

Thank you for letting us know.

#3

Hey @plwt. Thank you! Please let me know when it is corrected. I much prefer Firefox developer edition but have found getting it on Linux unnecessarily complicated. It would also be nice if y’all could add it to pop-shop so that it will automatically be managed by the system, than how it is now (having to download and reinstall developer edition each time there is an update)

#4

This is most likely an issue with the folder permissions. Could you try this:

  1. sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/firefox
  2. Restart Firefox

You should now be able to update Firefox.

#5

@dannycolin I already did that when I first installed Firefox. I still just get the pop up and clicking “install update” takes me to the Firefox homepage as if I am to reinstall Firefox from scratch.

#6

What’s the output of ls -al /opt/ for the firefox directory?

#7 
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Feb 17 07:49 firefox

where firefox here is firefox developer edition

#8

You must change the owner of the folder to your username. You said you did it but it still show that the owner is root.

Run sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/firefox while logged to your user account. Do not login as root (e.g. sudo su) before.

You can also type whoami in a terminal to know your username and replace $USER with it if you prefer.