How to Upgrade Firefox using Ubuntu

photo credit: jmerelo

So I got tired of using Firefox 3.6 in my Ubuntu machine and decided to upgrade to the newest version (5.0). It’s understandable that the package maintainers responsible for Ubuntu don’t put bleeding-edge cutting-edge releases in the distribution due to the possibility of introducing unstable elements into the user experience. But Firefox 4 has been out for over a year, and the migration to 5 is well underway.

Fortunately, it couldn’t be much easier to get the newest official release using our good friend aptitude.

In a terminal window, add the Mozilla team’s stable Firefox repository by issuing the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

Next, perform an update to get the package listing, and upgrade to install the newest browser:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

That’s it - you’re done! Your shortcuts are even updated, and any bookmarks or open tabs you might have had on the go are carried forward.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this process was.