How can I update Firefox on Ubuntu?

Question

Firefox on my Ubuntu installation requires me to update the Flash plugin and following the link, I get to the page which ask me to download the latest Firefox package.

I download the tar.gz and unzip it. It is the new version, but it is in an independent folder and if I want to use it, I need to open the folder and click on the Firefox executable.

How can I replace the old version of Firefox on my Ubuntu installation with the newly-downloaded?

I checked the old version:

nanger@mypad:/usr/lib/firefox$ which firefox
/usr/bin/firefox
nanger@mypad:/usr/bin$ whereis firefox
firefox: /usr/bin/firefox /etc/firefox /usr/lib/firefox /usr/bin/X11/firefox /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz

I'm not very familiar with the linux system. But what is /usr/bin/firefox? Is it a symbolic link which link to the Firefox executable in /usr/lib/firefox? How can I replace it with the new version?

Solution

First of all, you may run into a false message from a webpage asking you to update Flash when running Linux because, although Linux Flash still receives security updates from Adobe, our Flash player is stuck on version 11 or 12 point something, whereas all Apple and Windows users are using version 18 or 19.

You can safely ignore these messages and some of these messages have actually been linked to malware in the past, so be very careful my friend on what you click on and trust nobody.

To keep your Flash plugin updated, install the Flash plugin downloader from apt-get and it will update itself. Open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

To update Firefox, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox

Don't forget to restart Firefox.

If you would like to install Firefox nightly, please let me know and I will provide instructions on how to do so.

Please post any errors.

Comments

[Admin]

Firefox and flash plugin are not the same. To upgrade firefox, sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox . For flash askubuntu.com/questions/341428/…

[Admin]

be careful what you download it may be malware

[Admin]

btw, yes it it a symbolic link to /usr/lib/firefox/firefox.sh if you replace it now, it will be overwritten when firefox automatically updates with the rest of your system so that's probably not such a good idea if you would like to use your downloaded version instead

[Admin]

Really can't fathom why this was voted as duplicate and still shows as one...

[matanster]

W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/ado‌​be-flashplugin_20160‌​407.1.orig.tar.gz' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) E: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugi‌​n/adobe-flashplugin_‌​20160407.1.orig.tar.‌​gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.191 80], on Ubuntu 16.04.

[mchid]

@matt Sorry, I didn't see your comment. I think this might be related: askubuntu.com/a/862610/167115