Installing Firefox 81 in Linux

Firefox 81 officially released for all major OS e.g. Linux, Mac OSX, Windows, and Android. The binary package is now available for download for Linux (POSIX) systems, grab the desired one, and enjoy the browsing with new features added to it.

What’s new in Firefox 81

This new release comes with the following features:

• The Protections window shows reports about tracking protection, data breaches, and password management.
• Improved graphics performance to an even larger audience.
• Support for Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing.
• Better privacy protection for your web voice and video calls.
• Enhancements to core engine components, for greater browsing on more sites.
• Enhanced performance and nicer user experience for extensions.
• Other various security fixes.

New Firefox has also added lots of new interesting features to Android as well. So, don’t wait, just grab the latest Firefox for Android from Google Play Store and have fun.

Install Firefox 81 in Linux Systems

Ubuntu users will always get the latest version of Firefox via default Ubuntu’s update channel. But the upgrade isn’t yet available and if you are curious to try it, there is an official Mozilla PPA to test the new version of Firefox 81 on Ubuntu and its derivatives.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install firefox

On other Linux distributions, you can install Firefox 81 stable from tarball sources in Debian and Red Hat-based distributions such as CentOS, Fedora, etc.

The download link for Mozilla Firefox tarballs can be found by accessing the below link.

1. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/

The process of installing the latest version of Firefox from archive sources is similar for Ubuntu and CentOS desktop version. To begin with, log in to your desktop and open a Terminal console.

Then, issue the below commands in your Terminal in order to download and install Firefox from tarball sources. The installation files will be placed in your distribution /opt directory.

For 32-Bit OS

$ cd /opt
$ sudo wget https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/81.0/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-81.0.tar.bz2
$ sudo tar xfj firefox-81.0.tar.bz2 

For 64-Bit OS

$ cd /opt
$ sudo wget https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/80.0/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-81.0.tar.bz2
$ sudo tar xfj firefox-81.0.tar.bz2 

After Firefox application files had been decompressed and installed to /opt/firefox/ system path, execute the below command to first launch the browser. The latest version of Firefox should open in your system.

$ /opt/firefox/firefox

In order to create a quick launch icon in your desktop applications menu, issue the following commands in the terminal. First, change directory to /usr/share/application/ directory and create a new desktop application quick launcher based on firefox.desktop app launcher. The new launcher will be named mozilla-quantum.desktop.

$ cd /usr/share/applications/
$ sudo cp firefox.desktop firefox-quantum.desktop 

Afterward, open firefox-quantum.desktop file for editing and search and update the following lines.

Name=Firefox Quantum Web Browser
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox %u
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox -new-window
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox -private-window

Save and close the file changes. Launch Mozilla Quantum by navigating to Applications -> Internet menu where a new Firefox Quantum launcher should appear. In Ubuntu desktop just search for quantum in Unity dash.

After hitting on the shortcut icon, you should see the new Mozilla Quantum browser in action in your system.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Firefox 81 browser from a tarball source file in Debian and RHEL/CentOS Linux distributions.

Note: You can also install Firefox with a package manager called ‘yum‘ or ‘dnf‘ for Centos/Fedora/RHEL and ‘apt-get‘ or ‘apt‘ for Ubuntu-based distributions, but the available version may be little older.