Install Firefox Ubuntu

Firefox or Mozilla Firefox is an open-source and free web browser which is developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation (it's subsidiary). Firefox applies the Gecko rendering engine for displaying web pages which will implement anticipated and current web standards. Firefox started incorporating fresh technology upon the Quantum codename for promoting parallelism and a more perceptive user interface in 2017.

This browser is accessible for Windows 7 and many later versions, Linux, and macOS. Its unofficial ports are present for several Unix-like and Unix operating systems including Solaris Unix, illumos, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD.

Also, Firefox is available for iOS and Android. However, the version of iOS uses the layout engine of WebKit, rather than Gecko because of the platform requirements, as with every other web browser of iOS. An optimized Firefox version is accessible on the Amazon Fire TV as well because one of the two primary browsers available with the Silk Browser of Amazon.

• In 2002, Firefox was created upon the "Phoenix" code name by the community members of Mozilla who wanted a standalone web browser instead of the bundle of the Mozilla Application Suite.
• Firefox proved to be famous during its beta phase with its many testers and was appreciated for its security, speed, and add-ons as compared to the then-dominant Internet Explorer 6 of Microsoft.
• On 9 November 2004, Firefox was published and challenged the dominance of Internet Explorer with 60M downloads in nine months. Firefox web browser is a Netscape navigator spiritual successor as the community of Mozilla was developed by Netscape before their acquisition from AOL in 1998.
• The usage of Firefox share grew to the 32.21 % peak in 2009 November, with the 3.5 version of Firefox overtaking the 7th version of Internet Explorer, although not every Internet Explorer version as a whole, then its usage declined in the clash with Google Chrome.

History of Firefox

The project started as an experimental Mozilla project branch by Blake Ross, Joe Hewitt, Dave Hyatt. They believed the technical requirements of the developer-driven and Netscape's sponsorship feature creep compromised the Mozilla Browser utility. They established a standalone browser, to which they wanted to substitute the Mozilla suite for combating what they saw as software bloat of the Mozilla Suite.

The 0.1 version was published on 23 September 2002. On 3 April 2003, the Mozilla Organization disclosed that they planned for changing their focus to Thunderbird and Firefox from the Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox Features

The features of the Firefox desktop edition include full-screen mode, tabbed browsing, spell checking, smart bookmarks, incremental search, downloading and bookmarking from drag and drop, user profile management, a download manager, private browsing, bookmark exporting, bookmark tags, screenshot tool, offline mode, web development tools, a feature "page info" which displays page multimedia items and metadata list, configuration menu on "about:config" for many power users, and location-aware browsing (geolocation) based on the Google service, and a developed search system which by default applies Google in most markets.

• Firefox additionally offers an environment for many web developers, where they can apply built-in tools like Dom Inspector, Error Console, and extensions like Firebug and there has been a development Pocket feature.
• Firefox Hello is a development of WebRTC which was included in 2014 October, which permits Firefox users and other systems for having a video call along with the additional features of file and screen sharing by transferring a link to each other. It was scheduled to be deleted in 2016 September.
• Former features add the ability for blocking images from single domains (until 72 version), a 3D page inspector (11 to 46 version), tab grouping (until 44 version), and the ability for adding customized additional toolbars (until 28 version).

Some of the main features of Firefox are mentioned below:

Browser Extensions

Many functions could be added from add-ons established by the developers of a third party. Primarily, add-ons are coded with JavaScript, CSS, HTML using API which is called WebExtensions, created to be compatible with Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome extension systems.

Previously, Firefox supported add-ons with the XPCOM and XUL APIs, which permitted them for directly accessing and manipulating much of the internal functionality of the browser. XUL add-ons have been supposed legacy add-ons and they are no more supported on 57 version of Firefox ("Quantum") and newer.

Themes

Firefox web browser can have many themes included to it, which users can make or download from any third party to modify the occurrence of the browser. Also, the website of Firefox add-on provides users with the ability for adding other applications like screenshot apps, ad-blockers, games, and many other applications.

Guest session

For Android, Firefox was equipped with a feature, i.e., a guest session which was released in 2013. It memorizes browsing data like history, cookies, and tabs, but for the guest session duration. The data of a guest session will be kept even if rebooting the device or browser.

Standards

Firefox operates several web standards such as XPath, XSLT, DOM, ECMAScript, CSS, SVG 2, MathML, XHTML, XML, HTML4, and APNG images using alpha transparency. Also, Firefox implements proposals of the standards made by the WHATWG like the canvas element and client-side storage.

Installing Firefox in Ubuntu

For Ubuntu Mozilla Firefox is an internet browser (official), therefore, most distributions of Ubuntu habit by default installed. If our system doesn't have this browser because of any reason or if we have deleted it accidentally, we will explain how we can install this browser on our Ubuntu system.

In this article, we will explain some ways for installing Mozilla Firefox on our system. Then, we can make a selection based on the source we wish to install the Firefox browser from and if we wish to use the command-line or user interface.

• Using the Ubuntu Software Center
• Using the command line

Prerequisites

All users should log in through the root account or execute commands with sudo privileges.

Method 1: Installing Mozilla Firefox using Ubuntu Software Center

1. First of all, we need to select the Ubuntu Software Center icon that is positioned at the sidebar of the Activities toolbar of Ubuntu.
   
2. Press the search icon which is displayed on the Ubuntu Software Center:
3. We need to type "Mozilla Firefox" in the search bar when it displays on our screen. The results of the search will be shown in the below window.
4. Then, we just need to press the Mozilla Firefox as displayed in the following screenshot:
   
5. Press the button, i.e., "install" from our mouse for installing the Mozilla Firefox browser.
6. A pop-up page for confirmation will display on our screen after pressing the "install" We need to enter our password and press the "Authenticate" button as shown in the following screenshot:
7. The Firefox installation will begin after authentication as we can see in the following screenshot:
8. When the installation process will finish, we can close that window by pressing the cross icon as displayed in the following screenshot:

Launching Mozilla Firefox

1. We will press the button icon, i.e., App menu to start with Mozilla Firefox as displayed in the following image:
2. Press the All tab or we can also search the browser and then press the Mozilla Firefox icon as we can see in the following screenshot:
3. The Mozilla Firefox web browser will display on our screen as follows:
   

Uninstalling or removing Firefox

1. Press the icon, i.e., Ubuntu Software Center which is positioned on the Activities
2. Press the search icon and type Mozilla Firefox within the search bar using our keyboard. Press the "Mozilla Firefox" as displayed in the below image:
3. Press the "Remove" button to uninstall or remove Mozilla Firefox:
   
4. A pop-up page will display on our display. It is the confirmation that we wish to uninstall Mozilla Firefox. If yes, press the "Remove"
   
5. A pop-up page will again display on our screen for authentication. We must type our password and press the Authenticate button as we can see in the following screenshot:
6. The Uninstallation process of Mozilla Firefox will begin on the screen. It might take a few minutes.

Method 2: Installing Mozilla Firefox using the command line

Another way for installing Firefox is using the command line.

1. We need to open the terminal window.

2. We will type the below command when the terminal window open:

3. Then, we will type our password.

4. We need to enter the command in the terminal window which is mentioned below:

5. It might take some time to finish the Firefox browser installation.

Launching Firefox

We will type a command in the terminal for launching the Firefox browser. The command is mentioned below:

The Firefox browser will open on our screen as displayed in the following image:

Uninstalling or removing Firefox

We need to run the following command in the terminal window to remove the Firefox browser with the command line:

Click on the "y" button and the uninstallation process will begin. We would not have a Firefox browser on our system.