Mozilla Firefox 122 has been officially released, with an official Deb package debuting alongside it.
Yes: there’s now an official Firefox Deb package for Debian-based distros, including Ubuntu. This gives users a safe, reliable way to get the latest version of their browser should (for whatever reason) they not want to use a repo, Snap, Flatpak, or PPA builds.
Last year Mozilla launched their own dedicated apt repo to make it easier for Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc users to install Firefox Nightly builds and, more recently, Developer Edition and Beta versions. Then adding a stable build feels like a logical end point to the effort.
Mozilla say the benefits of their Firefox Deb package:
- Native package can do things some sandbox versions can’t (yet)
- 100% built & supported by Mozilla
- Compiler-based optimizations for better performance
- Faster updates as repo is ‘directly connected’ to the release process
Does this mean Ubuntu users shouldn’t use the Firefox Snap?
Not at all.
In fact, Mozilla says it “recommends” Ubuntu users (and those on Debian-based distros) opt for the version of Firefox provided by their distro’s package manager. In Ubuntu, that’s the Snap — so if you (as millions do) use it, don’t feel you need to change.
But should you want to, you can — and I’ve updated my guide about how to install Firefox Deb on Ubuntu with the new, official Mozilla APT repo.
Mozilla Firefox 122 New Features & Changes
When making a search query from the address Firefox is able to display images and descriptions for search suggestions (if provided by the search engine. Google does). Depending on what you’re searching for this can speed up selecting the correct result.
Do you use Firefox’s privacy-respecting translations feature? You’ll be pleased to hear there’s a big improvement to the quality of translated webpages.
“The results should be much more stable,” Mozilla says, adding the update “…fixes issues where the content of a page could disappear when translated, or interactive widgets could break.”
—still no Swedish support though, snyfta :(
Other tweaks:
- Firefox 122 can create and use passkeys in iCloud Keychain (macOS)
- MDN Web Docs article suggestions from Firefox Suggest available in address bar
- Line breaking rules of web content now match the Unicode Standard
Finally, web devs should know that keyboard navigation in the Inspector Rules view has been adjusted (some say fixed).
When editing a selector/property name/value the enter key no longer moves focus to the next input but validates the entry and focuses the matching element.
To validate and move focus hit tab or ctrl + enter.
I usually conclude these posts with a “where to download Firefox” section but this time I’ll skip it because chances are you not only know where to download Firefox from, but you already have it installed in some fashion.