Firefox ESR updates (91.4, Oct ESR 102.3)

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

firefox-esr 78.15 is still the ESR build provided by Debian.

Looking at the Firefox project, recently Firefox 91.4.1esr-1~deb11u1
is the newest ESR version.

I have no idea why the Debian version is so out of date. My best guess is that they need a maintainer for the ESR release. The Release 95 update is also .1 behind and Version 96.0 will be released on January 11.

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

The MX repo has Firefox 95.2 available and I have seen it in several other Linux distributions too; Debian has 95.1.

--
Brian Masinick

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr
^–v
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=team%2Bpkg-mozilla%40tracker.debian.org
^–v

https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=firefox

Excuse for firefox

Migration status for firefox (- to 95.0.1-1): BLOCKED: Rejected/violates migration policy/introduces a regression
Issues preventing migration:
Updating firefox would introduce bugs in testing: #817954, #992263
missing build on mipsel
Additional info:
Piuparts tested OK – https://piuparts.debian.org/sid/source/f/firefox.html
autopkgtest for libreoffice/blocked-on-ci-infra: arm64: Ignored failure, ppc64el: Ignored failure
22 days old (needed 5 days)

Excuses generated Sat Jan 8 03:08:17 2022

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Yeah, I see that. OK from the Debian perspective a regression is introduced. I’m curious if the new release fixes more than it breaks or if it is a poor update?

In regular use I have not encountered the regression cited, though I don’t question it’s existence. I do wonder if many other people are affected by this regression?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Brian Masinick.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member blur13]

Helpful

Up

0

::

That excuse is for “firefox” not “firefox-esr”, right? So firefox-esr will eventually be upgraded, even for buster?

[Member ModdIt]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi blur13,
if you want up to date ESR it looks like you will need to download from the mozilla site.
No real need to install, just unpack, make executable and run. I often put fox in a .something
directory in home, make a starter and run from there. If you care about privacy clean up before
starting the browser with an internet connection. A new profile will, in my experience, be created.

Debian adds security patches to the released version but that is support limit. there is nothing
in backports.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I agree, Moddit, and I was thinking about writing a similar comment. Any time a distribution doesn’t give me a copy of a particular version of a browser, whether Firefox or something else, I just get a copy for myself. I’ve built a few using various tools, but I prefer just getting a compressed tar archive to unpack, then, as you mentioned, you can put it anywhere you want. In the case of the Firefox browser, I usually create a firefox-release, firefox-beta, and firefox-nightly on a few of my distributions; on others, I just have a browser or two available that’s prepackaged. Any time the distro doesn’t include what I want, that’s definitely when I “do my own thing”.

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/91.4.1/releasenotes/
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-esr

These pages allow you to read the release notes, check the system requirements (and even grab the source code if you are interested in examining it) and you can also obtain the Firefox 91.4.1 Extended Support Release (ESR) with the most current updates and fixes, along with their descriptions.

Note that these packages come directly from Mozilla, so if you want this (whether or not the Debian project “approves” of it or likes it), you have the choice to do your own research, and if you wish to be informed, learn, and decide whether to use this code or something else. I hope that this will be helpful in some way.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member blur13]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Thanks for the tips guys!

[Member Robin]

Helpful

Up

0

::

There are more than 1000 PCs affected meanwhile by the update from 78.x to 91.x in ESR series of firefox within the last 14 days. Since there is mostly no way around of using a mainstream browser in a recent version to be able to access most web pages (at least here in Germany nothing works without this prerequisite), I have to stick to antiX 19 as long as the ESR is still at 78.x in antiX 19. What comes then… I don’t know. Debian Firefox-ESR was the last one (of the accepted by websites ones) installable at all. As said before, this update of firefox-ESR obviously will render this single core 32 bit PC, providing more than 3300 bogomips, which is more than many recent hardware can provide even with 64bit and multicore, useless for everyday usage. Simply because of its CPU does support only SSE1 instruction set, exactly as all the 1000 others in in the linked mozilla crash statistics above. I’d like to file a bug report to debian, but honestly, I don’t have the faintest idea how this could be done, even after reading their manual. Seems they run something called “mailing-list”. I do know what this is, but never have used such a thing before myself. No idea what exactly to do. So I’ll wait and hope some of the other 1000 sufferers will file a bug report for this.

Can only look in here from time to time these days because of this problem, since I have to reboot to antiX 19 in order of being able to read and post here.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@Robin – antiX-21 and Debian 11 (bullseye) both have firefox-esr 78.x

https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/firefox-esr

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Robin]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Many thanks, @anticapitalista !

Strange thing. The upgrade to 91 was done automatically while performing an apt routine maintenance upgrade on antiX 21, after which I wasn’t able to access any web page anymore. This shouldn’t have happened following your link, since firefox-esr should still point to the 78 version.

What do I have to do to get this 78 ESR version back on antiX 21? Do I need to edit something in the repo files? Or do I need to explicitely add the version number when calling apt?

And what is about security? Do you know whether all the important security patches are integrated still in the 78 series?

I’m somewhat feeling unsure about all this…

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I wrote: “firefox-esr 78.15 is still the ESR build provided by Debian.

Looking at the Firefox project, recently Firefox 91.4.1esr-1~deb11u1
is the newest ESR version.

I have no idea why the Debian version is so out of date. My best guess is that they need a maintainer for the ESR release. The Release 95 update is also .1 behind and Version 96.0 will be released on January 11.”

Skidoo wrote: “https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr
^–v
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=team%2Bpkg-mozilla%40tracker.debian.org
^–v

https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=firefox

Excuse for firefox

Migration status for firefox (- to 95.0.1-1): BLOCKED: Rejected/violates migration policy/introduces a regression
Issues preventing migration:
Updating firefox would introduce bugs in testing: #817954, #992263
missing build on mipsel
Additional info:
Piuparts tested OK – https://piuparts.debian.org/sid/source/f/firefox.html
autopkgtest for libreoffice/blocked-on-ci-infra: arm64: Ignored failure, ppc64el: Ignored failure
22 days old (needed 5 days)

Excuses generated Sat Jan 8 03:08:17 2022″

anticapitalista said: ” @Robin – antiX-21 and Debian 11 (bullseye) both have firefox-esr 78.x

https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/firefox-esr ”

Bottom line is that Firefox users have choices. The Debian repo has the Firefox ESR 78 series.
The Firefox Extended Support Release has the 91.* series, and there are updates in the 94.1 group.
Firefox 95.1 is in Debian as the current version.
Firefox has a 95.2 update released.
Firefox 96.0 is awaiting release on January 11 and has been built since January 4.
Firefox 97 beta builds are currently building, and last, Firefox Nightly continues to create new builds.

If those are not the right choices, Palemoon has a release that is stable and it behaves similarly to the classic Firefox, but is NOT identical.

Google has a stable, beta, and nightly version available.
There is also a Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium.

Opera has a similar setup with their browser, and Vivaldi is a variant loosely based on Opera.

Not all of these browsers will work for everyone, but we’re certainly able to choose from a large group of alternatives and there are more in addition to these.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member greyowl]

Helpful

Up

0

::

@Brian Masinick

I am running antiX 19 and FF esr 78.

The repo for antiX 21 has upgraded FF esr from 78 to 91.

I don’t understand why the antiX 19 repo does not upgrade FF from 78 to 91.

Please clarify.

Dell Latitude D620 laptop with antiX 22 (64 bit)

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

Helpful

Up

0

::

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr shows which repo has each version. 78 and 91 are both still available IF you select the appropriate link.

--
Brian Masinick

[Author]

Posts