Mozilla Firefox

Revision as of 01:17, 21 May 2019 by imported>Dalto (Add information on using Firefox with a dark theme)


Installing Firefox

Firefox can be installed using the package firefox in your favorite package manager or using the command:

pamac install firefox


Other Versions

Package Name Source URL Description
firefox-developer-edition repo https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/channel/#developer Official Developer Edition builds
firefox-nightly aur https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/nightly Official Nightly builds
firefox-kde-opensuse aur https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/mozilla:Factory/MozillaFirefox OpenSUSE's version of Firefox includes appmenu integration and native plasma integration
firefox-appmenu aur https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-appmenu/ Unofficial Firefox build with appmenu patches added
firefox-esr aur https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/ Official ESR releases. This is the oldest supported version of Firefox


Dealing with dark GTK themes

Some pages will be hard to read when using dark gtk themes. There are a couple of different ways to handle this:

  • The most flexible way is to install the add-on Text Contrast for Dark Themes which will allow you to keep your theming but adjust it on a per page basis as needed
  • A simpler way is Preferences->Language & Appearance->Colors and uncheck "Use System Colors". The downside of this approach is that Firefox will no longer use a dark theme.


Installing Firefox directly from the Mozilla Website

Generally it is better to use the version of Firefox that is available in the repos but installing Firefox directly has one advantage: Firefox will update itself automatically as soon as an update is available. This is great for users, who want to get the latest update as soon as possible without waiting for the next Manjaro update.


Download Firefox from Mozilla

Download the latest Firefox in your language from here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/

Most users will download "Linux 64-bit" in your chosen language. If you are using manjaro32, download "Linux 32-bit"


Extract the files

Ensure that ~/bin exists with

mkdir -p ~/bin

Unpack/extract the downloaded firefox-xx.x.tar.bz2 file to ~/bin/ using a graphical tool or with the tar command. Here is an example:

tar -xf ~/Downloads/firefox-66.0.5.tar.bz2 --directory ~/bin

You can now start to use Firefox by double clicking on the file (or executing it in a terminal):

~/bin/firefox/firefox


Create an icon

Let's create an icon in order to start Firefox much more easily.

Create an empty file

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
touch ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Edit the file ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop in your favorite editor. For a list of common editors see this page

Copy and paste the following code into your firefox.desktop file and save it:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Firefox
GenericName=Web Browser
Icon=~/bin/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;WebBrowser;
Exec=~/bin/firefox/firefox
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=false

In most Desktop Environments(DEs), Firefox will now be added to the menu. In some DEs you can click on the desktop to launch the application as well.


See also