How do I install and migrate to the official Firefox flatpak?

Solution 1:

Backing up your existing profile

Before we begin we should always back up our stuff, even if you're using Firefox Sync

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

Install Flathub

Mozilla publishes Firefox directly into Flathub, however we need to turn this on in Ubuntu. Follow these instructions, I am summarizing them below:

sudo apt install flatpak
sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo    

Install Firefox

This will install Firefox and the corresponding ffmpeg libraries so videos, etc work:

flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full/x86_64/20.08

Then the Firefox icon will appear in your menu/overlay, or you can do flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox to launch it from the command line.

Migrating your profile

[todo]

Reusing your old profile

You can also reuse your profile without manually copying it over though this probably isn't a good permanent solution.

Quit firefox, then do

flatpak override --user --filesystem=~/.mozilla org.mozilla.firefox

to have the flatpaked Firefox reuse your old profile.

Checking your work

Clicking on the burger menu -> Help -> About Firefox will show "Mozilla Firefox Flatpak" and "mozilla-flatpak" in the dialog window: