Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1534495
Accepted
Scooter
Asked: 2024-12-03 10:18:46 +0800 CST

How do I determine the source of my Firefox application?

  • 772

I am tired of Firefox (version 119.0.1 64-bit) telling me I should update. So I tried to uninstall my current version, assuming it came from SNAP or FLATPAK. With regard to SNAP it shows up in /var/cache/snapd/names . However, the command

sudo snap remove firefox

gives: snap "firefox" is not installed

The Ubuntu Software app shows Firefox not installed.

flatpak list

doesn't show Firefox and

sudo flatpak uninstall firefox

says: error: No installed refs found for 'firefox'

So that seems like I installed it from a special repository, presumably the one that firefox provides. How would I determine that and then update it, or delete and re-install it?

Edit (from comment by @karel :

$ apt policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 133.0~build2
  Candidate: 133.0~build2
  Version table:
     1:1snap1-0ubuntu2 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
 *** 133.0~build2 1000
       1000 https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     132.0.2~build2 1000
       1000 https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla/main amd64 Packages
     132.0.1~build2 1000
       1000 https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla/main amd64 Packages

The above appears to show version 133.0 installed. But ->Help->About Firefox shows 119.0.1:

enter image description here

Edit2: There are two Firefox executables on my system. The one in /usr/local/bin (linked to /opt/firefox/firefox) which is version 119.0.1 and one in /usr/bin which is version 133. The one in /usr/local/bin gets executed because it is in PATH ahead of /usr/bin.

firefox

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The output of apt policy firefox reports two different versions of Firefox:

    • .deb version (133.0~build2): This is the higher priority version (marked with ***) installed from https://packages.mozilla.org/. The priority of this package is 1000. This is the version of Firefox that gets launched when you click the Firefox icon. The source of this package is consistent with the instructions for installing the Firefox .deb package at How to Install Firefox DEB on Ubuntu (Not Snap).

    • snap version (1:1snap1-0ubuntu2): This is the lower priority version installed from http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu. The priority of this package is 500. Maybe this is just a transitional package in which case the Firefox snap package is not necessarily installed in your system.

    The output of which firefox is /usr/local/bin/firefox which is linked to /opt/firefox/firefox which is version 119.0.1 and the one in /usr/bin is version 133. The one in /usr/local/bin gets executed because it is in PATH ahead of /usr/bin. Since /usr/bin is version 133 but it is behind the one in /usr/local/bin, it is generating a confusing output when the apt policy firefox command is run.

    What are the results of apt policy firefox ? The results of apt policy firefox in my Ubuntu 24.04 show that the firefox snap package is installed (firefox: Installed: 1:1snap1-0ubuntu5). If Firefox was installed from a .deb package, the results of apt policy firefox would show that too.

    The output apt policy firefox tells you which of these commands to run.

    • Install or upgrade the firefox apt package: sudo apt update && sudo apt install firefox
    • Remove the firefox apt package: sudo apt remove firefox
    • Install the firefox snap package: sudo snap install firefox
    • Remove the firefox snap package: sudo snap remove firefox
    • Upgrade only the firefox snap package: sudo snap refresh firefox

    The sudo snap refresh firefox command returns snap "firefox" has no updates available if there are no updates available for firefox.

    • 1