Installing Firefox

Basic installation instructions can also be found in the Firefox release notes.

All Systems

Firefox system requirements are listed [here]. Download the latest version of the Firefox installer for your system from mozilla.com. If you install Firefox on a multi-user system where access privileges are restricted, you must run Firefox as a user with access to that location upon installation so that all initial startup files are generated.

Note: In most cases, you can install a newer version of Firefox over an existing 1.0 or later version [1]. If you prefer a clean install, Uninstall your current Firefox version and delete the installation directory before launching the Firefox installer.

Windows

Download the Firefox setup .exe file to your desktop. After the download has completed, close the browser and any other running programs.

• Optional: Open the Windows Temp folder (Windows 98/ME: Start -> Run -> Type C:\Windows\Temp -> OK. Windows 2000/XP: Start -> Run -> Type %temp% -> OK). Select all files and folders and delete, then close the Temp folder window.

Double-click the downloaded Firefox setup .exe file to launch the installer.

Mac OS X

After downloading the Firefox .dmg file, double click the Firefox Disk Image to open it in Finder, and then drag the Firefox application onto your hard disk. Be sure to drag the Firefox application out of the disk image and onto your Hard Disk before running it. Do not double click the icon in the disk image!
Note: Starting with Firefox 1.5, Mac OS X 10.2 or higher is required [2].

Linux

First, download the latest release to your home directory with your browser or download manager.

bash$ cd ~
bash$ wget http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/.../firefox-<version>.tar.gz

Next, extract the contents with an archiving utility such as Ark or tar.

bash$ tar zxf firefox-<version>.tar.gz

Now you must select the installation directory. If you are the only user, the extracted files could stay where they are, but If this is a multi-user system, the firefox directory must be moved to a publicly accessible location such as /usr/local or /opt.

bash$ su
<password>
bash# mv firefox /usr/local
bash# chown -R root:root /usr/local/firefox

The installation is more or less complete, but it's recommended that the firefox script be available somewhere in your path to avoid the inconvenience of having to enter the full path. This can be accomplished by creating a symbolic link in the relative 'bin' directory.

For the personal installation:

bash$ mkdir bin
bash$ cd bin
bash$ ln -s ../firefox/firefox .

Or the mult-user installation (as root):

bash# cd /usr/local/bin
bash# ln -s ../firefox/firefox .

Many Linux distributions already include /usr/local/bin and ~/bin in their global configuration, which can easily be verified by running 'firefox' from the shell or the desktop environment's (run) menu. If execution fails (command not found), you can adjust the path by appending "/usr/local/bin:$HOME/bin" to the existing PATH variable in /etc/profile and/or /etc/bashrc.