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Asked: 2022-05-05 02:41:36 +0800 CST

Why doesn't Ubuntu provide Firefox ESR in its repositories?

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There is no "firefox-esr" package when I try to search for it using apt-cache search firefox-esr. This is surprising because Debian stable has a firefox-esr package. Is there a reason why Ubuntu does not include the firefox-esr package in its official repositories?

firefox

2 Answers

  1. This question can really only be answered by a person within Canonical who is authorised to speak on the matter, and it's unlikely such a person will stop by to provide an answer that meets expectations. That said, you can install the ESR package by first uninstalling the Snap version of Firefox, adding Mozilla's PPA, and installing the package yourself.

    Putting the above steps all together, you can do something like this:

    1. Open Terminal (if it's not already open)
    2. Remove the Firefox Snap: 
      sudo snap remove firefox
    3. Add Mozilla's PPA: 
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
    4. Set the Mozilla PPA as a preferred source: 
      echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla-firefox
    5. Install the ESR: 
      sudo apt install firefox-esr

    This should give you Firefox ESR 91.9.0.

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  2. The Snap does offer ESR

    First, let's talk about how to get ESR directly from Mozilla using the snap (Ubuntu 22.04 and later).

    Let's look at the firefox snap:

    $ snap info firefox
name:      firefox
...
channels:
  latest/stable:    99.0.1-1    2022-04-13 (1232) 163MB -
  latest/candidate: 100.0-2     2022-05-02 (1300) 168MB -
  latest/beta:      101.0b1-1   2022-05-03 (1306) 169MB -
  latest/edge:      102.0a1     2022-05-04 (1310) 180MB -
  esr/stable:       91.8.0esr-1 2022-04-05 (1184) 161MB -
  esr/candidate:    91.9.0esr-1 2022-04-27 (1284) 161MB -
  esr/beta:         ↑                                   
  esr/edge:         ↑

    So installing Firefox ESR is as simple as

    $ snap install firefox --channel=esr/stable

    There is no Step 2. That was it.

    Now let's step back answer why it's not available in the Ubuntu Repositories as a deb (Ubuntu 21.10 and earlier). It's available as a PPA, of course.

    It comes down to resources: Building and testing each new update of Firefox takes hours of somebody's time.

    • No community volunteers have stepped forward to take on that continuous effort of maintaining the deb package (Universe repository). It's more than building -- it's testing, it's triaging and upstreaming bugs, and it's answering support questions about the deb.
    • The Ubuntu Desktop Team isn't willing to pay their engineers to do the job for a package that won't be part of a stock install (Main repository).
    • In the PPA, somebody else (Mozilla in this case) is doing the building, but YOU are doing the testing and discovering the rough edges and filing the bug reports and answering your own support questions.
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