How to Install Firefox as Classic DEB App on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

This guide will show you how to remove Firefox’s Snap and install Firefox as a regular application from a DEB file in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

As we informed you, long waited, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ‘Jammy Jellyfish’ was released recently, packed with exciting new features to give a better user experience, performance, and speed. And as you know, Firefox is the default internet browser. 

However, a decision by Canonical to provide Firefox preinstalled only as a Snap package has caused controversy among Linux users. So even if you want to uninstall it and use another browser like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, you’ll have to deal with it for a while.

Furthermore, even if you try to install the Firefox using the apt command as a regular DEB package, it simply reinstalls the Snap version since it is an empty package that links to Mozilla’s official Snap.

Setting aside the fact that Firefox running as a Snap package takes longer to run, another major factor leads users to seek the option of installing it as a standard DEB package.

We are talking about the installation of GNOME extensions. Because Firefox as a Snap is isolated from the rest of the system and thus cannot access the chrome-gnome-shell native connector, it is no longer possible to install GNOME Shell extensions from the extensions.gnome.org website.

Fortunately, there is a way to remove the Firefox Snap package and replace it with a standard installation from a DEB file. So let me show you how to do it in a few easy-to-follow steps.

Step 1: Remove Firefox Snap Package

First, let’s check the list of currently installed Snap packages on our Ubuntu 22.04 system.

snap list

As seen in the image above, Firefox is installed as a Snap package. To remove it, first, open the terminal app, and then run the command:

sudo snap remove --purge firefox

So far, so good. The Firefox Snap package has been removed from our Ubuntu 22.04 system.

Step 2: Add Mozilla Team PPA Repository

You can install Firefox as a classic DEB app by adding the unofficial “Mozilla Team” team PPA to your Ubuntu 22.04 repos. So as a next step, run the command shown below to add it to your system.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

Step 3: Install Firefox from a DEB Package on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Finally, we are ready to install Firefox from the DEB package as we will use the newly added PPA repository as a source. Run the command below:

sudo apt install --target-release 'o=LP-PPA-mozillateam' firefox

In the command above, the --target-release option lets you control where the installation packages are downloaded from. Hence we say the apt command to use the mozillateam repository as the source.

Now Firefox is installed, but we are not done yet. We need to make an additional adjustment to the mozillateam repository, described in the next section.

Step 4: Change PPA Priority

As you can see, in Ubuntu, we can install software packages from different sources. But if more than one repositories have the same package, which is the case with the Firefox package, the higher priority repository will be used by default.

Ubuntu’s official repository has version number 1:1snap1-0ubuntu2, which is always higher than the PPA package version. Therefore, the very first time you try to update the packages on your system, the result will be:

The system wants to replace the installed Firefox version with the one that has a higher priority in its default repository. The result of which will be to restore Firefox as a Snap.

So, to avoid this from happening, we need to change the priority of the packets in the mozillateam repository. To do so, run the command below:

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozillateamppa

The command creates and opens a new file for editing. Insert the following three lines:

Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 501

Save the file (Ctrl+O) and exit (Ctrl+X) the Nano text editor. Finally, update the packages list for the changes to be applied.

sudo apt update

Now that you have Firefox installed from the DEB package on your Ubuntu 22.04 LTS system launch it and enjoy using it.

Conclusion

In this guide, you have learned how to remove currently installed Firefox’s Snap package and instead install the Firefox as a classic DEB app on your Ubuntu 22.04 ‘Jammy Jellyfish’ system.

I hope you found the guide helpful. Thanks for reading! Your feedback and comments are most welcome.