How do I update Firefox to the newest version?

Question

I am using openSUSE. I want to update my Firefox browser to the newest version, but I don't know how.

How can I do that?

Solution 1

Extending Hunter's answer: there is no guarantee that you will get really the last Firefox in your distribution. With zypper, you will get the last firefox what were included into the OpenSUSE.

To get the last firefox, you have to download it manually, and install it manually. As Firefox has its own update mechanism (which is turned off in the packaged versions), you will get the latest Firefox, you can even have the latest alpha version (it is named nightly). Although it will be a firefox independent from the zypper/rpm update mechanism.

Nightly has also the latest version of the Firefox web developer plugin (since some versions it is merged into the FF and it is not a separate plugin).

Solution 2

In the middle ground between the answers of Peter H and Hunter, you would install a repository that has target version.

The version packaged with the standard OpenSuse repository is stable for Linux. Other repositories contain releases presently considered unstable for Linux (although they are production releases for Firefox). Currently the OpenSuse Mozilla repository has the highest Firefox production release, 56.0.1 (but is considered unstable for Linux).

The authoritative list of repositories is at software.opensuse.org. Follow the instructions there to install the desired repository and package.

Solution 3

If you have an old version of OpenSUSE like 13.2 and do not have the option of updating the system and so updating Firefox from official repositories any more, you can still get the latest version of Firefox running, directly from Mozilla.

Go to Mozilla (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox) using your Linux browser (final version to OpenSUSE 13.2 is 50.0.1) and download the up to date Firefox fitted to your system, like the site will suggest automatically. If not so, download it manually from Mozilla site.

Decompress the downloaded .tar.gz file (firefox-68.0.1.tar.bz2 on my case) using root account into the directory /usr/local/bin/mozilla/. You should previously create the mozilla directory, using a file manager like dolphin or that of your preference, or via terminal (cd /usr/local/bin/ && mkdir Mozilla). Use your preferred decompressor also, so you should have a /usr/local/bin/mozilla/firefox/ directory fulfilled with the installation files (including a "firefox" executable file within).

In OpenSUSE systems all "firefox icons" point to and execute the command "firefox", which means at all /usr/bin/firefox due look up order in $PATH system variable (in a terminal: echo $PATH to see its content. ":" is the default separator). But /usr/local/bin comes first in that look up order, so...

After decompression, create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin/ directory named firefox pointing to /usr/local/bin/mozilla/firefox. In a terminal use the command:

ln -s /usr/local/bin/mozilla/firefox/firefox  /usr/local/bin/firefox

Done. From any account, every time one clicks a Firefox icon, the up to date Firefox will be launched instead that old Firefox.

No modifications were made upon system installed (old) Firefox, so you can still run it. Copy a Firefox icon with another name, like old Firefox, edit its properties, and explicitly declare /usr/bin/firefox %u instead only firefox %u as found in application aba. Or, in a terminal, execute the command ./usr/bin/firefox manually.

This solved the only problem I had with this exceptional Linux distribution: internet navigation in modern sites.

Sorry about my English. It's my second language.

Solution 4

To update individual packages, specify the package with either the update or install command, so in your case it will be like this:

zypper update firefox
zypper install firefox

A list of all new installable packages can be obtained with the command:

zypper list-updates

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