Install Firefox and Plugins Manually on Linux

If you are like me, you want to have the latest secure and up-to-date version of Firefox installed. Generally the package management system handles all software downloads, which is extremely useful, but unfortunately it may take some time for security updates to appear. There is one such workaround and that is to install your own copy. This tutorial is aimed at those using Mandriva Linux so your results may differ depending on which distribution you use.

Download the latest release of Firefox from their website. Place it in your home directory/folder. If you have Firefox already installed you will already have the dependencies if not check your package manager for the following requirements. If you don’t fancy that then install Firefox from your package manager and this will automatically select the dependencies.

Open the terminal, in my case its Konsole, which starts out in your home directory.
Display the contents of the directory by entering

Firefox should be in the list!

Then enter the following

You should now have a folder named Firefox in your home directory.

Now open the Firefox directory up in Dolphin or Konqueror and click on Firefox.

Firefox should load up and check all extensions for compatibility. When loaded check out if it the latest version by clicking on Help > About Mozilla Firefox, which should now display the new version.

If you want to hide this folder in your home directory then place a full stop at the beginning of the file, this will hide it unless you have chosen to show all of you files and folders. A couple more things to do would be to change your menu editor to point to the new Firefox. Right click on your app launcher/kick-off menu and click on menu editor. Navigate to Internet > Firefox section. Click on the disk icon next to the command dialogue box then point to your new Firefox directory in your home folder and select the Firefox file that you selected earlier. Now that has taken care of the link in your menu.

Media plugins that were on the previous version will not be included in in the new version but it is possible to navigate to the previous folder and copy them over into your new plugins folder. Navigate over to root > usr > lib > mozilla > plugins and copy all the existing files and paste them into the plugins folder in your Firefox directory.

For Flash I installed the RPM from adobe then open up your package management software installer and navigate to Applications> Internet click on the adobe flash-plugin. On the lower half of the screen click on files and this shows the directory of the currently installed flash.

Navigate to that directory in dolphin and copy the libflashplayer.so file across to the plugins directory.

Thats it. With this install you can also check for updates within the Help menu so you never need to wait for a security update again.