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I have installed Ubuntu 14.04, which already has Firefox v31. I want to install an older version of Firefox. How can i do it?

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    Why not just download an older version of firefox from the firefox website? They have .deb packages for most of their versions.
    – Alvar
    Aug 2, 2014 at 14:39
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    Some users will find this post because they want to avoid some less popular recent features in Firefox, such as DRM integration (EME) and disallowing unsigned extensions. Some users like those changes and some don't. In these cases--and actually in all cases--it's better to use a different browser than to use an unsupported version of Firefox that doesn't receive updates. Running an old browser that doesn't get security fixes is a big risk! A supported version of a Firefox fork like Waterfox is a better choice than an unsupported version of any browser.
    – Eliah Kagan
    Sep 9, 2017 at 19:47

6 Answers 6

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This page has all the deb packages of Firefox from 3.5 to the newest version.

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  • do you mind marking this answer as correct? [1]:askubuntu.com/users/311588/user311588
    – AliReza Mosajjal
    Feb 25, 2017 at 14:46
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    Be warned: scary part is that it silently overwrites the also installed version 52 (I needed it to keep access to my companies VPN so I did not really care)
    – gkephorus
    Mar 15, 2017 at 6:33
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To use two or more versions of firefox (which maybe some older versions).

Download the older version of firefox from the archive: Mozilla.org_ftp_site

Unzip somewhere.

Next open terminal and use the following command to add a new firefox user.

firefox --no-remote -P

Create a new user, take note of the user-name. (Different users will have unique user data, bookmarks etc...)

Next, create a launcher for the 'firefox' you just unzip. Go inside the unzipped folder , there you will find a firefox file (binary) which launches the program. When creating the launcher, update the command as:

/path/to/unzipped/firefox --no-remote -P "<user-name>"

Use link to know about creating a launher : Creating launcher in Ubuntu

And now, with this launcher the newly downloaded version of firefox can be used. Important - check the build version to verify.

In the url bar about: to check the build version.

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If you want to install an older version of Firefox (and I dare to guess that's because the new australis UI? ) at least use the firefox-esr version.

Firefox-ESR = Firefox Extendend Support Release, and at least you will have the latest security updates.

You can download and use the latest Firefox-ESR release from the Official Firefox page.

Alternatively:

I have created some srciprts for this puprose that are hosted at github. You can download the appropriate one and execute it. (click the raw button to download the script)

The scripts need root privileges in order to execute them, because they will download and write some files inside /opt/ directory.

If you want to read the script before you execute it (and this is always a good thing to do), you can do so with a text editor (like gedit or nano) or directly at github page.

The github page is here.

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  • Thanks a lot! I installed one of those "mozilla builds" (deb packages) and it wouldn't start up. Other than beng a bit behind ESR is exactly the same as the corresponding non ESR version right?
    – Bleep Bloop
    Dec 20, 2016 at 20:54
  • Thanks again. The latest 50.x versions in Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) + VirtualBox for whatever reason broke errors thrown in the console so I would get silent errors instead of the warnings thrown by VueJs. Go figure. Works fine in the Windows 7 host, same Firefox version. This ESR version fixes that. (plus the new "builtin" developer tools is sluggish, Firebug addon is faster >_>).
    – Bleep Bloop
    Dec 20, 2016 at 21:10
  • You could always run old WIndows versions in Wine; then it won't conflict with anything.
    – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx
    Sep 17, 2022 at 11:58
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Check this link: Mozilla FTP site. You can download your desired version, but note that these are not .deb files. You will need to extract the .tar.gz files, and run the firefox binary.

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  • what is a firefox binary.? are you saying the deb is inside the tar? or are you saying that it is like the tarball like blender has.. where it is self contained in a directory.
    – Bhikkhu Subhuti
    Aug 17, 2016 at 13:51
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    Try this ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/49.0b4/linux-x86_64/en-US/…. Extract the zipped file, and run $./firefox from within the directory.
    – Swarnendu Biswas
    Aug 18, 2016 at 0:11
  • Thanks.. I actually found the next answer (on this page) to help me launch it. Otherwise, if I clicked on the firefox, I got the same version of firefox that was previously installed ie. the newest one). creating a user was the solution. In the end, digital pali reader extension was still not working in firefox 47. I made it available by right clicking on the menu bar and adding to "customize palette" Then I was up and running. This also worked in the recent current version. Perhaps this will help with other people's problems. BTW.. you can get a menubar this way too.
    – Bhikkhu Subhuti
    Aug 18, 2016 at 0:44
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For Ubuntu Trusty and Xenial exists new Jonathon F's PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/firefox-esr
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-esr

It maybe very useful because of new Firefox add-on policy.
I have installed 10 add-ons and 9 of them are marked as LEGACY.

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    Debian has firefox-esr package, but Ubuntu does not. You may want to vote for it on LaunchPad bug 1676164.
    – N0rbert
    Sep 9, 2017 at 21:06
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Here are some clear instructions for downgrading to an older version of Firefox in Ubuntu 12.04. I did it and it worked fine. Now that I've upgraded my Ubuntu to 14.04, Firefox 31.0 is dragging like crazy...very slow and unresponsive. So I'm getting ready to try this with 14.04. I don't see why it wouldn't work for 14.04.

Here's the link https://www.liberiangeek.net/2012/04/how-to-install-previous-versions-of-firefox-in-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin/

One precaution, though. Almost immediately after the older version starts up, it will likely automatically update to the newest version! As soon as you start up the older version, you have to go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced button > Update tab... and uncheck the "automatically download newest version" box. If you don't get to it fast enough, I couldn't figure out how to interupt the download and installation. I tried again and just moved faster on it and got the box unchecked before it could start the upgrade and it worked.

It's all terminal commands so I assume if it's not going to work on 14.04, a bad command error will let me/you know.

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