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Firefox Users on Linux Deserve Better Downloads

If you download Firefox on a linux machine today what you get from their servers is a pretty unfriendly tarball. What are you supposed to do with this? Maybe you know how to extract a tarball. Maybe you even know what of the many files inside it you're actually supposed to run and how to run it? Maybe.

 But does everyone else? Do non-developer users have any clue what they're doing with this thing? They experience is awful.

 I want to see that change and followed a ticket that tracks just that. What do you think?
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Comments

irmen said…
I think you should just get it from your distribution's package manager. 1 click or 1 shell command away; apt-get install firefox
1:11 PM
Calvin Spealman said…
I'm sorry but i don't think that's reasonable. People want something they search for it, and they'll find that download page and then they'll be stuck.
2:17 PM
Anonymous said…
Any linux user with a modicum of knowledge will obtain Firefox with the method irmen stated.

"People want something they search for it"
Exactly: they use yum search or the apt/zypper equivalent.
3:10 PM
irmen said…
Most Linux installs already contain Firefox pre-installed as default web browser (and it updates via the system's package managers update mechanism) so only in rare occasions does a Linux user have to actually search for it and download it...
And *if* you are such a user that you have to do this, isn't it likely that you are savvy enough to deal with a tarball (or know that you should really prefer installing a prebuilt and pretested package for your distro instead)?

Just my $0.02
1:28 PM
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