How to Install Firefox Developer Edition on Ubuntu & Linux Mint

Firefox developer edition, which is a browser built specifically for web developers, was first introduced by Mozilla back in November 2014. It streamlines the development workflow so developers don’t need to bounce between different platforms and browsers. This browser comes preloaded with many web developers tools such as WebIDE and Valence which allows developers to debug other browsers and apps directly from within the Firefox developer edition.

By using the Developer Edition, you also gain access to tools and platform features at least 12 weeks before they reach the main Firefox release channel. It can run alongside your existing Firefox browser.

The latest version is 50.0a2, released on August 5, 2016. Changes includes:

• Find in page now supports a mode to search for whole words only
• New preference for allowing Ctrl+Tab to cycle through tabs in recently used order
• Improved printing by using the Reader Mode
• Emoji for everyone! Firefox will use built-in Emoji on operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux)
• Use accel-(opt/alt)-r as the reader mode keyboard shortcut
• changes for web developers can be found here.

Note that Firefox developer edition may missing some standard Firefox features. For example, it doesn’t have the leaked password alert feature, if you use the Firefox built-in password manager.

Install Firefox Developer Edition on Ubuntu/Linux Mint via Ubuntu Make

With this method, Firefox D.E. coexists with your default Firefox browser and can be updated in Help > About Firefox window. First, install Ubuntu Make which is available from repository.

sudo snap install ubuntu-make --classic

Then install firefox-dev.

umake web firefox-dev --lang en-US

You will be asked to choose the installation path and language. Pressing Enter will choose the default option. Once it’s installed, you can start it from your application menu.

Note that because Linux Mint ships with a different desktop environment, you won’t see the firefox developer edition icon in the menu. You can start it from the terminal. For instance, if you chose the default installation path, then start it with:

~/.local/share/umake/web/firefox-dev/firefox

You can also log out and log back in, then the icon will show you in your application menu.

Install Firefox Developer Edition from PPA

With this method, your existing Firefox browser will be replaced. Open up a terminal window (CTRL+ALT+T), and run the following 3 commands one at a time.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/firefox-aurora
sudo apt update
sudo apt install firefox

That’s it! I hope this article helped you install Firefox Developer Edition on Ubuntu and Linux Mint. As always, if you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter or follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook page. Thanks for visiting!