Ubuntu said 3.5 was availible in the software update and I updated but It still says

3.0.11. Why is this?

 

3.5 is not going to be available until Ubuntu 9.10. You can install it manually, but it won't be pushed as an update.

 

How do I install it manually

 

Is it still safe to use Firefox even though I installed the updates Also I have noscript installed. Does that help

 

No, it's available in the universe repository, or add the mozilla-daily ppa - here you also get Firefox 3.6 Minefield.

 

Hi Cheater87

According to a thread in the Ubuntu.fr thread the safest way to have Ff 3.51. in Ubuntu Jaunty is:

1) Download the Ff archive file of Ff from Mozilla

2) decompress this archive file in /home in a directory like /home/xxx/Programs", which create a sub-directory "firefox"

3) in consol mode (command line) :

sudo cp -r ~/Programs/firefox /opt

4) Modify the properties of the launcher (Ff icon)

from "firefox %u"
to "/opt/firefox/firefox %u"

5) Modify the favourite application: System menu -> Preferences -> Favourite applications (I translate the menu from french so the words may be somewhat different...)

Replace "firefox" by "personnalised" and add this command line:
/opt/firefox/firefox %s

This way you still have Ff 3.0.11 and Ff 3.5.1

Tell us if this solve your problem.

 

Much too complicated - see my previous post.

 

Note: If you are using Firefox 3.0.11, the vulnerabilities/fixes posted by Mozilla only apply to Firefox 3.5 and NOT Firefox 3.0.11 which is not affected.

Note: What Ubuntu was saying was that if you already had Firefox 3.5 installed you could update to 3.5.1 via using Synaptic Package Manager and reloading your repositories. This does not imply you can upgrade from Firefox 3.0.11 to Firefox 3.5.1.

Here is how I have both Firefox 3.0.11 and 3.5.1 installed.

The result of issuing the command "ls -lt /usr/bin/firefox*" is as follows on my system:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2009-07-20 06:30 /usr/bin/firefox-3.0 -> ../lib/firefox-3.0.11/firefox.sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2009-07-20 06:30 /usr/bin/firefox -> firefox-3.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 2009-07-20 06:30 /usr/bin/firefox-3.5 -> ../lib/firefox-3.5/firefox

This indicates that my current version of Firefox is set to 3.0.11 and that Firefox 3.0.11 is installed in the directory /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.11, and that Firefox 3.5.1 is installed in the directory /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 (which could also be named /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.1 if I changed the name to reflect the subversion of 3.5.

What this means is that first you download firefox-3.5.1.tar.bz2 to your Desktop, and then apply the command bzip2 firefox-3.5.1.tar.bz2 to get the file firefox-3.5.1.tar. Then you apply the command tar -xf ./firefox-3.5.1.tar to get the directory firefox. Then you cd into the firefox directory, and issue the command: sudo mkdir /usr/lib/firefox-3.5 or mkdir /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.1 (if you desire). Then from the firefox directory on your Desktop issue the command: sudo cp -rp ./* /usr/lib/firefox-3.5

All you need to do to change the current version from 3.0.11 to 3.5 is issue:
$ sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/firefox-3.5 /usr/bin/firefox
and a similar couplet of commands to change back from 3.5 to 3.0.11

But that only works if you have already set up the symbolic links to both firefox-3.0 and firefox-3.5 as shown above in the directory /usr/bin.

-- Tom

 

@lotuseclat: Can you, please, explain why this intricateness is necessary? I also have both Firefox versions installed by just applying what I said 3 posts above.

 

So many packages to choose from. Hmmm which one.

 

Just choose firefox-3.5. Or what are you referring to?

 

Hi tlu,

Intricateness may not lead to separation, which what I described does. Your solution gets a development version of Firefox from ppa which may not yet be stable. At least the solution I describe can be seen by long time Unix/Linux users/developers as straight-forward and easy to implement using what is natural in Unix/Linux environments.

-- Tom

 

The ppa not only contains 3.6 but also 3.5. And the latter is also available through the universe repo => no development version. BTW, I'm using 3.6, and it's very stable.

 

No crashes, but quite a few bugs here and there. Some window focus and proxy password prompt issues got fixed a few days back, and now I'm waiting for the "History" -> "Restore from last session" to work again after it got broken a few weeks ago.

 

Now you've lost me. This entry is not available in my FF 3.6. Perhaps you're using TabMixPlus which offers that? I had used that, too, but ran into problems recently (probably a compatibility issue with 3.6) and disabled it.

 

That's not what the Ubuntu devs told me. They said 3.5 will not be available until 9.10 because they don't want to change browser versions and risk screwing up everyone's system in the middle of a release cycle. They haven't had time to thoroughly test and tweak 3.5 and wont until 9.10 comes out. Remember, 3.5 is considered a completely new release and not merely an update.

That said, a version of 3.5 is in the repos, but it must be installed manually -- It wont be pushed as an automatic update. Right now it's kind of a "use at your own risk" type of thing. I am on 3.0.11 and I have not been prompted to upgrade to 3.5.

And if one installs 3.5 directly from Mozilla's website through Ubuntuzilla, one must be aware that it is only available in 32 bit. That's the main reason I have not upgraded yet -- I would have to change out all my codecs and plugins from 64 bit to the 32 bit versions and it's far too much trouble.

EDIT: It seems you are talking about using the unstable repos. I don't like doing that and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to new users like the OP appears to be.

 

Well, I had explicitly mentioned the universe repo and the mozilla-daily ppa from the beginning. Although they are officially called unstable please note that v. 3.5 from both sources is maintained by the Ubuntu Mozilla Team - they are the same people who are the maintainers of the "official" FF 3.0 (one of them is Alexander Sack). And if you're saying that the Ubuntu devs didn't have the time to thoroughly test v. 3.5, this is one more reason to prefer the version from the Ubuntu Mozilla Team over the one from the Mozilla site. Besides, I'm convinced that the chance that particularly an unexperienced user is running into problems when applying the measures mentioned in some posts here is bigger than he has when installing the Ubuntu Mozilla Team version instead.

 

Thanks tlu. For interest sake I just installed from repo - no problems, all bookmarks, settings, themes were there. Only one extension, the Ubuntu Firefox Modifications 0.7 was not compatible. Will the 'Shiretoko' 3.5.1 version
really be maintained ?
I use Opera 98% of the time so it doesn't really matter.
@cheater - launch it from Applications>Internet>Shiretoko Web browser.

If you want it as default firefox see this thread:- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1216114&highlight=firefox
I don't think tlu would recommend that

 

No TMP on my end. Perhaps that menu option is Windows only (I don't use Minefield on Ubuntu - it doesn't like my video card drivers - so I don't know).

The latest nightly build corrupts animated gifs as well. So yeah, it's stable and doesn't crash too much, but I wouldn't recommend it to the average user who doesn't want to deal with bugs.

 

Indeed Since you can make 3.5 your default browser simply via System → Preferences → Preferred Applications → Web Browser as already mentioned in that thread. Why choose a complicated solution if there's an easy one?

 

Hi all

One of my contact in Qc city found an easy way to install Ff 3.5.1:

Firefox 3.5 + ubuntu: whats new and how to get it

Check the hint at the end of the page...

 

As soon as Mozilla releases 64 bit versions on their website I will upgrade. But I doubt that will happen any time soon.

 

At the risk of repeating myself: I'm still unable to see why this method is preferable over using the FF version provided by the Ubuntu Mozilla Team. Why do you think that the version from the Mozilla site is better adapted to Ubuntu than the one from the Ubuntu guys? If you can't provide any evidence, I really don't know why we should continue this discussion.

 

When I installed 3.5 and ran it for the first time, it asked me if I wanted it as my default browser. All I did was download from the Mozilla site and change the properties in my launch icon to point to the new version. Easy as 123.

 

Its really quite simple. Ubuntu always takes the conservative approach of letting new versions "stabilize" before putting them in the repos. This is fine and I approve of this approach for the typical user.

But I want to test the latest goodies myself so I download them from the Mozilla. IMO, if you don't know how to handle this, you probably shouldn't be using the latest version anyway. Because if something goes wrong, you won't know how to fix it.