How to install the latest version of Firefox on your Chromebook (2021)

Consumers love options. It is just a fact and it is what makes our purchasing decisions as unique and diverse as we are. For Chromebook users, the Google ecosystem is probably the first stop when it comes to finding and using apps on Chrome OS. That said, a little bit of variety is good and there are some who would like to use platforms outside of Google’s offerings. One area where this sounds very true is web browsers. When you sign in to your Chromebook, you’ll inherently use the Chrome browser. After all, chrome THE. This does not mean that you need to be married to the Google browser. You have options and we’ve covered some of them in the past.

You can always install the browser of your choice on the Google Play Store, but the experience is not great. You’re stuck using a browser designed for a mobile device on an expansive desktop, and that’s more frustrating than it’s worth. Fortunately, the addition of Linux applications to the Chrome OS scene has opened the door to options like Brave Browser, Vivaldi, Tor and others. Although the gap is large, Firefox is still one of the most popular browsers in the world, second only to Safari as the third desktop browser in the world. With the help of Linux, you can install the latest version of the Mozilla browser on your Chromebook, if you wish.

Last year, I mapped the process of installing Firefox on Chrome OS, but times have changed and the Linux container for Chromebooks has been upgraded from Debian 9 to Debian 10. With that, the method for installing the latest version of Firefox has changed, although slightly. There are a few different ways to do this installation, but today we are going to look at the one I recommend for its simplicity and straightforward process.

Note: If you just want to try Firefox on your Chromebook, you can install the ESR version from the Debian repository. Do this with the command sudo apt install firefox-esr but be aware that it is currently at version 78, while the most recent version is 84. If you really want to maintain and use Firefox on your Chromebook, I recommend getting the latest build for security and stability.

To install the latest version of Firefox on your Chromebook, we’ll need to add the repository that contains the latest build. Do not worry. It is not as intimidating as it may seem. First, let’s make sure your Chromebook is set up and ready to use Linux apps. You can learn how to install and update the Linux container here. Now we need to install a text editor so that we can add the Debian Unstable repository that contains the Firefox package. I use nano, but you can install gedit or the text editor of your choice. To install nano, run the following command on your Linux terminal.

sudo apt install nano

Now we need to attach the source.list file. This file contains repository links that your device can point to when installing Linux packages. To add the unstable Debian archive, we need to open this file with the nano text editor. Do this with the following command on your Linux terminal.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

If you opened the file correctly, you should see what appears in the image above. Go to the line below the last entry and paste the following string into the terminal. Once in place, press Ctrl + X to exit and press Y and Enter to save on exit. At this point, you can technically install Firefox, but you don’t. You now have the unstable repository added. If you run any update commands, it will pull them from the unstable repository instead of the main repository and this can result in corrupted packages or unstable applications being added to your device.

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

To prioritize the main repository and prevent applications from being updated via unstable, we need to create a preferences file to “pin” the repository. To do this, we will again use the nano or your favorite text editor. On your Linux terminal, paste the following command to create the file with nano. As we are creating a new file, it will be empty.

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/99pin-unstable

In the file, paste the following lines exactly as they appear. Once pasted, press Ctrl + O and Enter to save the file, then press Ctrl + X to exit nano. This will secure the repository stable and prevent updates to the unstable repo.

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 10

Last but not least, it’s time to install Firefox. To do this, we need to update the packages from the newly added repository. Then, we can install the latest build of Firefox. You can do both tasks at once by pasting the following command on your Linux terminal. Once completed, you will have the Firefox icon in your app launcher and you can pin it to your shelf for quick access to it. If you want to remove Firefox, just right click on the icon and select uninstall.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -t unstable firefox -y

I hope you found this useful. I’m sure many users are looking for alternative software to install on their Chromebooks, and I’m happy to help make that happen. Is there any specific non-Google software you want on your Chromebook? Leave a comment below and we’ll see if there’s a way to make it work on Chrome OS. See you next time.