# Firefox



## knightjp (Mar 11, 2019)

Hey there,

I'm not sure what happened to Firefox.
In doing a fresh installation of FreeBSD with Openbox, I did `pkg install Firefox`, and  a error came up stating that no such package was available. I used the ports method and it took hours... which too ended in an error.

To get myself a browser I installed Opera, but when trying to install my fav extensions, the extension page stated that I needed to install Opera. But I was using Opera in the first place. So what gives? 
Maybe the version I installed is way too old or something?


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## Vull (Mar 11, 2019)

I can't find the firefox package right now either. I suspect that it's a temporary thing, and that firefox will soon be back.
	
	



```
root@dell:~ # pkg search firefox
firefox-esr-60.5.2,1           Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
firefox-esr-i18n-60.5.2        Localized interface for Firefox
xpi-firefox-showcase-0.9.5.6   Easily locate and select any open browser window
```
If you don't want to wait for the pkg system to sort itself out, you could probably install firefox-esr -- the extended support release -- which is pretty close to the same thing -- a slightly older and more well-tested version.


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## knightjp (Mar 13, 2019)

If Firefox does not work, what are the other browsers that we can install?


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## scottro (Mar 13, 2019)

Firstly, if that wasn't a typo, you probably wanted pkg install firefox, with a lower case f.  Also, you can do pkg search firefox, which, on 11.2 shows firefox and firefox-esr, (extended support something, probably not rabbits).  There is also a package called psearch which searches ports, but that has to be installed with pkg install psearch. 

As for other browsers, if you look through (assuming you installed ports, and I guess you did because you mention building firefox) www.  A few that come to mind offhand are chromium, which is one of the more feature filled, opera, and palemoon.  There are a few browser threads on the forum, though I don't know how up to date they may be, and doing a search for browser is going to give you far too many choices. 
Palemoon is very similar to firefox--on my CentOS-7 install, they seem to use the same $HOME directory, chromium is similar to google chrome.  There are also some lightweight browser, which may not support all websites, like midori.  And of course, there are the text based ones like lynx and w3m.


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## D-FENS (Mar 13, 2019)

It seems to have been fixed in the meantime.


```
% pkg search firefox                                                                                                                         :(
firefox-65.0.2,1               Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
firefox-esr-60.5.2_1,1         Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
firefox-esr-i18n-60.5.2        Localized interface for Firefox
firefox-i18n-65.0.2            Localized interface for Firefox
xpi-firefox-showcase-0.9.5.6   Easily locate and select any open browser window

% freebsd-version                                                                                                                            :(
12.0-RELEASE-p3
```


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## SirDice (Mar 13, 2019)

It's a little tricky to find the latest build logs but you can usually find the status here: https://pkg-status.freebsd.org/


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## knightjp (Mar 13, 2019)

roccobaroccoSC said:


> It seems to have been fixed in the meantime.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


I tried to pkg search and "firefox" doesn't show up. Only firefox-esr.. 

scottro thanks for the recommendation.


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## Vull (Mar 13, 2019)

knightjp said:


> I tried to pkg search and "firefox" doesn't show up. Only firefox-esr..
> 
> scottro thanks for the recommendation.


Just guessing that the package might be missing from the repos for the i386 machine architecture, but not for other architectures like amd64. Looks like you and I are still getting the same results:
	
	



```
$ uname -a
FreeBSD dellfp10 12.0-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE-p3 GENERIC  i386
$ pkg search firefox
firefox-esr-60.5.2,1           Web browser based on the browser portion of Mozilla
firefox-esr-i18n-60.5.2        Localized interface for Firefox
xpi-firefox-showcase-0.9.5.6   Easily locate and select any open browser window
$
```


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## D-FENS (Mar 13, 2019)

Vull said:


> Just guessing that the package might be missing from the repos for the i386 machine architecture, but not for other architectures like amd64. Looks like you and I are still getting the same results:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good catch. I have amd64:

```
% uname -orp
FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE-p3 amd64
```


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## D-FENS (Mar 13, 2019)

SirDice said:


> It's a little tricky to find the latest build logs but you can usually find the status here: https://pkg-status.freebsd.org/


Very useful indeed!
The build logs show firefox as successfully built for i386, 12.0 and 11.2. Maybe the deployment failed? Or the download server metadata has firefox missing somehow?


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## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 13, 2019)

Quantum Information regarding the existence of Firefox was lost due to a disruption of Decoherence free subspace and will return when no-one is looking. They're still working out kinks of the Quantum Engine.



knightjp said:


> If Firefox does not work, what are the other browsers that we can install?



I only use Mozilla-based browsers so I keep www/palemoon installed since I can depend on www/firefox to crash almost every time I use it. There is www/seamonkey but it's had a vulnerability listed for months if that doesn't bother you.


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## knightjp (Mar 13, 2019)

I'm using amd64 version. I don't see it at all. All I see is `firefox-esr`


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## ljboiler (Mar 13, 2019)

Perhaps you're configured to look at the quarterly pkg repo.   That one only has the firefox-esr version.
Switch to the latest repo; looks like version 65 was built about 5 days ago.


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## Vull (Mar 13, 2019)

It's up to version 66 already in the latest repo. More info starting on page 22, post #542, in this thread:









						Using FreeBSD as Desktop OS
					

I think the conversation has moved on since September 13th! XD  But get back to me in a couple of years and I am pretty sure your opinion will have changed.  Also you should not take offense by technical predictions. The lifespan of a piece of Microsoft software is not a reflection upon VB.NET...




					forums.freebsd.org


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## scottro (Mar 14, 2019)

I also have pkg set to latest and see firefox 65.0.2,1 on FreeBSD-12.


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## ljboiler (Mar 14, 2019)

Looks like 66.0_1,1 just got pushed out yesterday.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 6, 2019)

*armagadd-on-2.0* (the certificate expiry issue)

There's some discussion under *Choice of a web browser*.

The UI part of what follows might be specific to Firefox (and Firefox ESR) on FreeBSD …

After finding a profile bitten, for a while, by this Mozilla bug:

1549078 - Some users indicating both Studies are active, but all extensions are still disabled.
– I thought it peculiar that this nested preference –
☐ ……​☑ Allow Firefox to install and run studies​– was enabled, whilst the superior (overriding) preference was *disabled*. For a while I wondered whether this UX peculiarity had an impact on effectiveness of studies.

Eventually I realised, the superior preference –
☐ Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla​– can not be enabled.

I guess that this UI limitation is expected, given the feature set of Firefox on (Tier-3) FreeBSD e.g. Crash Reporter not implemented. True?​




Mozilla issues relating to this part of the user interface include:

bug 1431274 - The "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" item should be below of the "Allow Nightly to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" item. (RESOLVED FIXED in Firefox 59)
bug [1431280 - Uncheck the "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" checkbox should not uncheck the "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" checkbox automatically. (RESOLVED WORKSFORME)
Document interaction around disabling checkboxes/radio buttons with nested elements · Issue #224 · FirefoxUX/photon (closed).


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## ishtar (May 6, 2019)

Mozilla released 66.0.4 to address the issue for those that the study fix didn't resolve it. I had the same problem with MacOS with the official release, only solution was to upgrade. 
The port has been updated to 66.0.4 RC3 which addresses the issue. I assume the pkg will be provided over the weekend unless an emergency build is pushed.









						Firefox  66.0.4, See All New Features, Updates and Fixes
					






					www.mozilla.org
				








						[ports] Revision 500863
					






					svnweb.freebsd.org


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## grahamperrin@ (May 6, 2019)

I forgot to include this in my previous comment: 


```
$ date ; uname
Mon  6 May 2019 13:41:51 BST
FreeBSD
$ pkg query '%o %v %R' firefox
www/firefox 66.0.3_2,1 FreeBSD
$ grep 66.0.4 /usr/local/poudriere/ports/default/www/firefox/Makefile
DISTVERSION=    66.0.4
$
```



ishtar said:


> … I assume the pkg will be provided over the weekend …



For myself I'm building from source, poudriere busy building rust-1.34.1 and … oh my giddy aunt, to copy that from Konsole I accidentally keyed Control-C instead of Shift-Control-C so that's more than eight hours down the drain, haha.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 1, 2022)

argwings said:


> … Firefox actually officially supports FreeBSD as far as I know.



Not quite. 



grahamperrin said:


> … Tier-3 …
> 
> Supported Build Hosts and Targets — Firefox Source Docs documentation


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## argwings (Mar 1, 2022)

Thanks. I couldn't remember the details.


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