How to Install Firefox 6 in Ubuntu 10.10 and 10.04?

Mozilla Firefox is a highly secure web browser which is as good as the Google Chrome (okay, Chrome is a bit faster :D). I remember the excitement that I felt in the past after seeing Mozilla releasing a new version of their browser after a "long" time in today's standards but now were seeing rapid release schedules that are rolled-out in like 3-4 months cycle which makes the whole process a bit "usual" and a bit boring too :D.

Anyhow Mozilla has finally released their next version of the web browser, Firefox 6.0 which brings few changes to the GUI + especially for GNU/Linux users, Firefox 6.0 is now faster than ever thanks to the GCC 4.5 compiler series, "aggressive optimizations" according to Mike Hommey (a Mozilla developer) who wrote a post sometime ago.

Main features...

*. Well, if you've been using the it from the Beta version, then there aren't that many changes concerning the overall GUI and windows. But as said the address bar now highlights the "Top level" domain name, not a biggie, but maybe useful to some.

*. As said loads and feels a bit faster for the GNU/Linux users where in the past Firefox Windows version was always superior to the GNU/Linux version which "was" sad since Mozilla itself was an open-source project.

*. Reduced memory consumptions (as much as by 30% in some cases!).

*. Enhanced support for HTML 5 and CSS animations.

*. A newly added feature called "Permission manager" that lets us easily configure the behavior of passwords, cookies, pop-up, etc with ease. You can access its window by using the below command in the Firefox address bar.

about:permissions 

*. Better Java-script support (thanks to the Scratchpad, developers can easily build and run Java-scripts with ease in this version of Firefox).

*. Few improvements over the Firefox Sync app ... are just a few to mention.

You can install Firefox 6.0 in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and 10.04 Lucid Lynx by using the below commands in your Terminal window.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

But please be aware that the 11.04 packages are not released yet but this PPA is actually for the Maverick and Meerakt users (lucky geeks!) thus for the Natty users, I think FF6 will arrive in the official repositories with in few hours . So we gotta be a little patient :/.

If you want a more "cleaner" installation, then backup your bookmarks, etc and completely remove the current firefox by using the below command.

sudo apt-get purge firefox

Then follow the installation using the above commands.

That's it.