After creating a fresh installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I installed DEB Firefox from APT by following Mozilla’s instructions from here. But I noticed that it was secretly replaced with Snap Firefox. I was able to verify this by checking the About Firefox page. This is the third time I noticed this.

    • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      14·
      8 hours ago

      But it’s not obvious either. When I say ‘apt install firefox’, specially after adding their repository to sources.list, I’d expect to get a .deb from mozilla. Silently overriding my commands rubs me in a very wrong way.

      • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 hours ago

        It takes a little more than just adding a different repository to your package manager, you have to tell apt which to prefer:

        echo ’
        Package: *
        Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org
        Pin-Priority: 1000

        Package: firefox*
        Pin: release o=Ubuntu
        Pin-Priority: -1’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla

    • sourov@lemm.eeOP
      51·
      8 hours ago

      Since when this became a known thing? I’m aware that the snap version is installed when the user is trying to install the deb version of Firefox by running,

      sudo apt install firefox

      But I never heard that the installed DEB version of Firefox is replaced by Snap version of Firefox.

      • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
        9·
        7 hours ago

        The deb version is a pointer to the snap in their repos. Nothings being replaced, it no longer exists. The deb version of Firefox in Ubuntu repos is a wrapper that installs snap and has no binaries in it. Has been for 3 years or so.

        • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
          2·
          6 hours ago

          It’s more than that. Ubuntu copies the Debian repos and then applies their own changes on top. Debian has a native (DEB) Firefox package, so Ubuntu specifically has to remove it for every new version.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        21·
        6 hours ago

        Well then you haven’t been following it closely. As someone else said, the reason is simple: the Snap version is more recent (like it or not) and in Ubuntu apt is configured to take into account Snap packages.

        • Morphit @feddit.uk
          2·
          2 hours ago

          Canonical added an epoch prefix to the firefox version number. Because that epoch (1) is higher than the implicit default (0), the official ubuntu dummy package is always considered to be a higher version than the official Mozilla package. apt doesn’t look at snap packages, it installs the deb, but the ubuntu deb just runs snap install firefox and basically nothing else.