Introduction¶

Ubuntu 22.04 removes a native Firefox package in favor of a snap package. I'm sure this has advantages.

But the reality for me was several fold: startup times were noticeably slower, and the selenium geckodriver just plain didn't work for me (issue here), with some debate online but no canonical solution. I also couldn't get Jupyterlab to autolaunch (minor, but annoying).

Solution below reproduced from https://balintreczey.hu/blog/firefox-on-ubuntu-22-04-from-deb-not-from-snap/ with adaptations which worked for me.

Solution¶

You can still install Firefox as a native deb from the Mozilla team PPA. The process which worked for me was:

Step 1¶

Add the (Ubuntu) Mozilla team PPA to your list of software sources by running the following command in the same Terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

Step 2¶

Pin the Firefox package

echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla-firefox

Step 3¶

Ensure upgrades will work automatically

echo 'Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins:: "LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}";' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-firefox

Step 4¶

Install firefox (this will warn of a downgade - ignore it)

sudo apt install firefox

Step 5¶

Remove the Firefox snap

sudo snap remove firefox

Conclusion¶

This worked for me - Firefox starts, my existing Selenium scripts work.