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Announcing Faster, Lighter Firefox Downloads for Linux with .tar.xz Packaging!
(blog.nightly.mozilla.org)
this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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Who's not using a package manager? Except for LFS, for which you should compile it yourself.
Most normal users do not do this. But there might be special packages with special setups, like scripts downloading and installing from Mozillas download links. Or package creators themselves might use it. Or maybe you are a developer, in which case such direct downloads would be helpful for testing and comparing stuff. I also assume most people do not care or notice any difference with this change. Still its an improvement without much drawback and thats always good, even if its only a few people benefiting of it.
Yeah, particularly for downloading Firefox Nightly, these self-contained archives are extremely helpful.
And sometimes -bin AUR packages (and of course some normal packages, behind the scenes) use those packages as base. Even though I prefer normal or -git packages.
NixOS packaging pipeline will benefit from this
On Ubuntu I use the tar.bz2 version to not have to deal with snaps or extra repositories. Also on Debian Stable to get the latest version.
I use the flatpak on Fedora but have used the tar version in the past because the package managed version is hijacked with stupid Redhat bookmarks and homepage that loves to return after being removed randomly.
If you don't want to deal with snaps being forced down your throat, why are you still on Ubuntu?
I don't. I have installed Firefox manually for many years across several distros now, albeit for different reasons. For example:
Debian only has Firefox ESR in the Bookworm repo. I want the latest mainline version.
Bazzite only offers it via Flatpak, which breaks functionality I need such as native messaging.
I see no problem installing it manually. It keeps itself updated and has caused me zero problems.
I highly suggests all Ubuntu users to use the vanilla Firefox version downloaded from Mozilla. It's way better because it's not a Snap package.