Firefox offers a powerful platform for the web. Developed and maintained by Mozilla, Firefox is one of the finest open-source web browsers that comes with a simple interface and support for tons of extensions.

Unlike most other browsers, Firefox strictly follows the rule of “no bloatware” and being lightweight. However, depending on the usage case, the necessity can be different. Keeping that in mind, Firefox is developed with tremendous flexibility, leaving plenty of room for customizations and tweaks.

For web developers, Mozilla offers a great service – Firefox Developer Edition. It’s specially crafted with lots of features only for developers – entire “Firefox DevTools”, “Fronts Panel”, “Shapes Editor” and a lot more!

Almost all the Linux distros come up with the standard Firefox as the default browser. It’s also quite easy to install the default one on any Linux distro. However, the “Firefox Developer Edition” comes up with a different story. It’s not as easy as running a single code and letting your system do the job.

Keeping that in mind, let’s check out the tutorial on installing Firefox Developer Edition on any Linux distro.

Caution

Firefox Developer Edition is basically Firefox in its core. So, there’s a pretty high chance of conflicts between both of the versions. That’s why it’s important that you make a backup of your Firefox profile beforehand. Learn how to backup Firefox profile on Linux.

Don’t forget to uninstall the default Firefox as well! Run the following command according to your Linux distro –

• Ubuntu

sudo apt remove firefox

• Debian

sudo apt-get remove firefox-esr

• Fedora

sudo dnf remove firefox

• OpenSUSE

sudo zypper remove firefox

• Arch Linux

sudo pacman -R firefox

Installing Firefox Developer Edition

Firefox Developer Edition isn’t available on the default software repository of the Linux distros (except Arch Linux and other Arch-based distros).

Don’t worry; the universal method will work for any Linux distro including Arch Linux.

• Arch Linux

Run the following command –

sudo pacman -S firefox-developer-edition

• Universal method

Download the latest package of Firefox Developer Edition.

Now, extract the downloaded package –

sudo tar -xf firefox-65.0b8.tar.bz2 -C /opt

It’s time to finally perform the configuration task. At first, set up a symlink for Firefox at “/usr/local/bin/firefox”.

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox

Now, we need a desktop shortcut to launch Firefox Developer Edition with ease. Let’s create the shortcut file at first.

sudo touch /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

Open up the shortcut –

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

Enter the following code in the editor –

[Desktop Entry]

Name=Firefox Developer

GenericName=Firefox Developer Edition

Exec=/usr/local/bin/firefox

Terminal=false

Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default48.png

Type=Application

Categories=Application;Network;X-Developer;

Comment=Firefox Developer Edition Web Browser

Once you save the file and exit the editor, make sure that the file is executable.

sudo chmod +x /usr/share/applications/firefox-developer.desktop

Using Firefox Developer Edition

Start Firefox Developer Edition from the menu –

Enjoy!