When will Canonical update the ubuntu community to Firefox 9 on ubuntu 11.10?

Question

What's the deal guys? Why is Linux always lagging behind. I remember for firefox 6 & 7, it took almost a month to get the current version through the update system after Windows and Mac OSX get it even one day because official release sometimes.

Linux used to push the updates faster than Windows in the past, I'm unsure as to OSX but for versions 3 and 3.6.x of Mozilla Firefox, they were lightning fast to make sure the OpenSource Linux community were always on the bleeding edge, or at the very least, current.

Feels like people will start making comment about Linux that they did with OSX. Oh, OSX takes years to get the latest whatever, hardware, software.

Linux users have never had to wait to get their software updated with everyone else.

I found myself using Google to manually download the current version of Firefox for versions 6, 7, and 8. It is really annoying, why should I spend hours of my times trying to be current when it should be automatic!
Thx

Answer 1

The best solution here is to install the official Mozilla release of Firefox



Download firefox-9.0.1. tar.bz2

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/



Save to Downloads Directory and do the following in the Terminal



cd ~/Downloads/



tar xjf firefox-9.0.1.tar.bz2



sudo rm -r /opt/firefox



sudo mv firefox /opt/firefox



sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-old



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



Close the Terminal.



Firefox 9.0.1 is now installed and when any updates become available they can be easily applied.





LUg.

Answer 2

I can think of several reasons, namely that most security updates in Firefox are for Windows-specific issues, and that with Firefox's new rapid release cycle, there is less time to certify a release. Nor have there been any major feature additions to Firefox that would warrant rushing it in.



If you are really anxious to use the latest Firefox, you can always add this PPA:



http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-security/+archive/ppa



EDIT: Java isn't even included in Firefox, so it's impossible for them to have improved "the Java rendering engine." Perhaps you meant JavaScript? All releases of Firefox claim to be "30% faster"; the real world differences are usually minuscule.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/01/urnidgns852573c400693880002575e5008290bb-idUS55438673720090701

http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/01/firefox_has_been_hitting_the_gym_-_version_3dot6_is_faster__more_capable/

http://www.infopackets.com/news/internet/2011/20110323_firefox_4_released_6x_faster_lots_of_changes.htm

http://www.thriftmac.com/firefox-5-faster-than-ever

http://ulyssesonline.com/2011/08/15/firefox-6-is-20-faster/

http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/27/firefox-memory/

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/89570-firefox-8-is-20-faster-than-firefox-5-matches-chrome-14

http://betanews.com/2011/11/10/whats-coming-in-firefox-9-10-or-11-little-to-get-excited-about/



The page I linked to earlier (Yahoo cropped the link for some reason so I've modified it above) show you how to add the PPA. It takes exactly three lines of copypasta. You can just copy the following commands below.



1. Open a terminal.

2. Enter



sudo add-apt repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa



3. Enter



sudo apt-get update



4. Enter



sudo apt-get dist-upgrade







That's it. No Mensa membership required.

Answer 3

Have you clicked on the help menu in Firefox to have it check for updates.