What's going on with Firefox in Bionic? Can we expect updates or a snap?

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Currently, Firefox in Bionic is still stuck at version 57.0.4, the current version 58.0.2 is still sitting in proposed (since 8.2.2018). In all supported Ubuntu releases, the Firefox is up-to-date.

I know Ubuntu 18.04 is not recommend for daily use yet, however it runs stable and fine for me on my PC and users are encouraged to install development/beta builds to help test them before release. Having a old Firefox version exposes me and other users on Bionic to security risks.

I would like to ask what’s going on with Firefox in Bionic? Can somebody with more insight in the Ubuntu development process share whats going on?

Related, is there any update on a Firefox Snap? Since more than a year ago, Mozilla sounded quite enthusiastic:
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/04/21/firefox-default-browser-for-linux-users-ubuntu-new-snap-format-coming-soon/

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Would be awesome to get a snap version. With the newly introduced channels in Ubuntu Software, we can choose to install stable, beta, nightly, etc.

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@oSoMoN is probably the best person to ask about this

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As we’ve mentioned previously, the Firefox snap is actively being worked on and we’ll make further announcements when we can.

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Specifically, Firefox 58 won’t automatically migrate out of the proposed repository for bionic because it doesn’t build on ppc64el. However, Firefox 59 Beta does build, so I believe the plan is to just wait until Firefox 59 is released in about 2 weeks or so.

As a workaround, if you’re using Ubuntu 18.04 now before 18.04 is released, I suggest you can either

  1. Add the artful-security apt repo to your /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful-security main universe

  2. Or use the firefox-next PPA to switch to beta builds of Firefox

I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Thanks @jbicha, that sounds good!

Nice to hear!

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Great news, look forward to it! Now that snap apps pretty much use the system theme (mouse, window decoration, etc.).

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Firefox 59 is now in Bionic.

Firefox 59 is also available as a snap from Mozilla.

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Sadly Firefox 59 didn’t ship with the CSD headerbar support. That feature was backed out upstream by Mozilla. CSD headerbars rendering will come with Firefix 60 now.
But people can at least activate OMTP support (off-main-thread-painting) in about:config for better performance now.

For the csd-headerbars screenshot in the CommuniTheme thread I had to use the official Firefox Beta download from Mozilla because the firefox-next PPA isn’t updated yet. And the Firefox Beta snap from the edge channel didn’t work for me: it wasn’t properly themed and refused to load any site.

I am not lucky when trying snaps. I tried the edge snap of Firefox (60 beta4) and the edge channel snap of Scummvm (2.0) and both were unusable. ScummVM instantly crashed when loading a game while the official .deb download from the ScummVM site works flawlessly.

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Cool, that’s new right? Currently, it’s already Firefox 60b1 in the edge channel! Thats good to see!

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Released five days ago, yes! Though edge was advertised by Ubuntu as being Nightly, which it isn’t yet (that’s 61), but I suppose they’ll get there eventually.

Also it’s now 60b4 and the most recent download of Beta on their site is 60b5, but they’re getting there…