How can I downgrade Firefox?

Question

I let Firefox auto update and I don't like some new feature, the new GUI, or it broke something. How do I roll back or downgrade?

NOTE: Potential duplicate questions (1, 2) did not come up in a search of SuperUser, but they did as suggested questions when I typed the title. Weird. Those other questions do not give instructions on how to downgrade Firefox, simply pointing to where you can find older versions. Such referring-only questions are no longer welcome on SuperUser.

Solution 1

There is no built-in rollback or downgrade function within Firefox. In fact, on their support page for the subject, they strongly insist that you do not roll back.

I rolled back a longstanding, many times upgraded, Firefox 57 to the specific version and bit depth below. I did not manually uninstall Firefox, but was prepared for things to go sideways. YMMV.

If you know better and don't want to heed their warnings, then do these steps:

1. Download an older version of Firefox here. If you are trying to back down from 57, you'll want to grab 56.0.2, (Windows US English version 32 bit exe) here. You can look at all of their 56.0.2 releases here.
2. Wait until the download finishes.
3. Find your profile folder. You can find where that is here. Also, this Mozilla Support article covers steps 3, 4, and 5 of this answer.
4. Close Firefox.
5. Back up your profile folder. You can simply copy the folder somewhere else, just in case stuff goes sideways.
6. Find the executable you downloaded in step 1.
7. Run it.
8. Go through the installer, and when its complete, launch Firefox.
9. My previous session, extensions, and settings were all as they were before the upgrade/downgrade. I was pleasantly surprised.

If your install is broken, try the usual steps to fix installation problems:

1. Completely uninstall Firefox via Programs and Features
2. Reboot
3. Run a cleanup utility like CCleaner.
4. Manually remove the leftovers and profile folder if you have to.
5. Install from the 56.0.2 executable you downloaded.
6. Verify it works with a new profile.
7. Restore your backed up profile (Mozilla Support)

See also: gHacks, MozillaZine.

Solution 2

I didn't roll back my 16.10 installation of Firefox 57, but installed Firefox-ESR alongside it.

https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

all my extensions seem to work fine

better yet.. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/

Solution 3

This answer is based on my answer on AskUbuntu - it suggests and describes howto install Firefox ESR 52.5 on Ubuntu and Mint.

I think it is better to downgrade to Firefox ESR 52 (this branch is planned to be supported until 2018-06-26 and will get security updates).

You have two options here:

• Get Firefox ESR 52.5.0 from Jonathon F's PPA. See my answer on a similar topic. You can install the package on 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) and 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) from this repository with the following commands:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/firefox-esr
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
  

Or

• Get Firefox ESR 52.5.0 from Mozilla Team's PPA (the first versions were published here at 2017-10-11 as the result of discussion on the ubuntu-desktop maillist). You can install the package on 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), 17.04 (Zesty Zapus), 17.10 (Artful Aardvark), and 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) from this repository with the following commands:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
  

For your information:

• The feature request for the official ESR package is located in Launchpad bug 1676164 and on the ubuntu-desktop maillist. At November I wrote a fresh message to this mail list with a link to the current question. I asked similar question on new community.ubuntu.com too.
• The current status of porting LEGACY extensions to WebExtension are located in Google Spreadsheet. The percentage of WebExtensions is not too high.

Debian already have official firefox-esr package.

Comments

[Ramhound]

Willing to give this question an upvote because of the answer. It is well articulated, and while I would rather not have meta commentary in the question, I understand it.

[AFH]

I have found that Pale Moon answers most of the problems that the latest updates have brought with them. It is forked from FF27, but it is guaranteed to continue support for NPAPI in both 32- and 64-bit versions, and most FF add-ons work in it, albeit in earlier versions. You should also keep an eye on Waterfox, though it is currently less stable than Pale Moon.

[YetAnotherRandomUser]

@AFH I use Palemoon, but not as much as Firefox.

[YetAnotherRandomUser]

@Ramhound I would have made it smaller if I could have.

[Ravindra Bawane]

I've used Waterfox exclusively for a few years now and haven't had any real stability issues. But it sounds as though I should give Pale Moon a try too.

[AFH]

@music2myear - I had several reasons for wanting to prefer Waterfox, but I found Pale Moon handles some of my add-ons better. But your comment will make me look at it again.

[Thomas Weller]

+1 because the new Fiorefox sucks. Especially because the Refresh button has moved

[Nemo]

In many GNU/Linux distributions the package manager has a feature to downgrade a package, so it should be enough to consult the package manager's manual. However, I don't know whether the upgrade from Firefox 56 to 57 irreversibly changes your profile.

[Imran Juma]

Same here on Windows, I used Session Manager to restore sessions after a crash, but it no longer works. :S

[Arjan]

My 2 cents: when you don't like the current version of a specific evergreen browser then export its bookmarks, uninstall it, and start using a different browser. Using an outdated version is a bad idea as for security, even more so for users who need help to downgrade to such outdated version.

[Joe]

@arjan AFAIK, that's what Firefox ESR is for. Security without other updates. mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq

[Arjan]

Yes, @Joe, but ESR is basically a different browser, isn't it? (I feel Barry's answer is the only solution for those who don't like Firefox 57 but liked older versions.)

[Mike M]

what about uninstalling the newer version? Don't you need to do that first?

[YetAnotherRandomUser]

I did not manually uninstall before running the 56.0.2 installer. That's part of the reason i was surprised when it worked.

[Mike M]

nifty :) Maybe say that explicitly in the Answer...... I'm imagining many people assume it and miss your point.

[Mike M]

of course, you are also going to get people who may ask if you've tested every version installer for that behavior..... uninstalling or replacing any version, higher or lower

[Hashim Aziz]

Out of curiosity, why are you done with Mozilla?

[YetAnotherRandomUser]

Why go through all that length? You're treating Firefox like an infection and implying that it dials home to exfiltrate data.

[N0rbert]

Installing Firefox 56 is not secure solution. Install Firefox ESR 52.5 instead.

[slhck]

Note that Jonathon is going to remove the PPA: launchpad.net/~jonathonf