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Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

blog.mozilla.org

121–130 of 176 posts

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case of security fixes, you will stay unpatched for a bit less time. ESR is intended for places that really don't like any form of change like rigid enterprises and banks and such. End users should probably steer clear of that unless they have a good reason not to; which they generally don't. Except for a false sense of security. I personally don't see a good reason to opt out of security changes for any longer th…

End users also have plenty of reason to dislike change. Change tends to mean things like exciting new spying and UI regressions. Meanwhile, security concerns are often overblown. If you're just using your browser for e.g. email, news, facebook, youtube, netflix, amazon, and your bank, and not venturing out into the seedier parts of the web, you're probably at ~0% risk of some RCE exploit. In any case, an adblocker is…

Change tends to mean things like exciting new spying and UI regressions

Or missing out on new anti-fingerprinting and anti-tracking improvements. Note that adblockers don't generally do the former.

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#123
post #32

So, we have come full circle? There used to be a .deb repo, then there wasn't and now we have one again.

.deb packages, just like server side rendering, are the new hotness.

.deb packages have been the primary method of distributing programs on Linux for well over a decade at this point.

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#124

I was already using the ~mozillateam PPA, because fuck Snap, but it'll be great to have an offical Firefox repository. Ubuntu, if you're listening: fuck Snap. I'm never going to use it. I stripped from all my Ubuntu machines. If you try and force it upon me, I'm moving to Debian, no matter how much hurt that causes me.

As someone who is quite new to Ubuntu, and recently just ran an install. I've seen this "snap" word thrown around and for better or worse I consider the opinion of random HN users to be better than the average opinion elsewhere on the internet.

What do you dislike so much about snap? Also any tips on how one goes about purging it from their machine if they too also decide they don't like it?

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#125
post #55

Is there really a point these days in having the very last release rather than the ESR version packaged by Debian? If so what are the benefits for end users?

My system, my choice. I'll be testing Mozilla's packages, for sure.

As for Debian's standard response to using non-Debian packages, they have the following wiki entry:

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#126
post #56

They write "advanced compiler-based optimizations"; I guess that doesn't fall under open source?

Think of it more as "we compile with -O3". If you installed with the .tar.bz2, you'd get that already. If you use a 3rd party produced .deb, they might build with -O2. That's just an example; the blog is probably referring to PGO and/or LTO: profile-guided optimization and link time optimization, which require some fiddly setup that I believe third parties have traditionally not bothered with. And yes, it's all open…

Gentoo users like me fiddle with such things, they're just flags you can turn on before compiling. It's been a while since I experimented though, I didn't notice any advantage, with a disadvantage being an increase in compile time. I haven't tried on my newer machine yet though... but I suspect I wouldn't notice any difference.

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#127

I was already using the ~mozillateam PPA, because fuck Snap, but it'll be great to have an offical Firefox repository. Ubuntu, if you're listening: fuck Snap. I'm never going to use it. I stripped from all my Ubuntu machines. If you try and force it upon me, I'm moving to Debian, no matter how much hurt that causes me.

What hurt do you expect from Debian? Just genuinely curious as I've daily drove since my switch and would like your perspective

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#128
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a web developer, you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, so there is no point in developing for Firefox ESR.

> Most companies don't prioritize legacy support, On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is. Also, if everyone else in the sector only supports the most recent release of only two browsers, you might have that extended customer base all to yourself. > you would better develop your app using the latest dev tools and targeting the latest web specifications only. That is…

> On the other hand, the more legacy you support, the larger your potential customer base is.

It is more a decision about the trade-off between costs and benefits. Supporting really old browsers like IE is a pain in the ass.

> Another is that you should regularly use the oldest platform (hardware, OS, browser) that you want to support.

It is possible to manually slowing down your browser with dev tools. https://imgur.com/a/99XbwN9

Re: Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian derivatives

#130
post #85

I wonder if they’ll keep this up permanently. Tempted to switch (maybe I can remove my system’s Snap infection), but redoing bookmarks and extensions (and getting my ublock config and OneTab bookmarks) is a pain. And I’ll have to figure out how to not lose my passwords this time. What a pain.

Why would you do that? Your firefox config should be kept in .mozilla/firefox (or is it .config/mozilla now?) and simply picked up by the new firefox binary. The only time this doesn't work is when you install an older version whose configuration "format" is not compatible with the newer version's one. Edit: a sibling commenter just made me aware of the config for the "snappy" version actually resides in another dire…

I did that because I didn’t know where the snap files were stored, or that it was different from the normal spot.
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