Ubuntu users will finally have 0-day releases of Firefox
Mozilla today, April 21, 2016, announced the availability of future releases of their popular Firefox web browser in the snap package format for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Earlier today, Canonical unleashed the final release of the highly anticipated Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
operating system, bringing users a great set of new features and
improvements, among which support for installing packages in the snap
format used until now only on the Snappy Ubuntu Core OS for embedded and
IoT devices.
Also today, it looks like Canonical has renewed
their partnership with Mozilla to offer Firefox as the default web
browser for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and upcoming releases of the Linux
kernel-based operating systems. As part of the new partnership, Mozilla
is committed to distributing future versions of Firefox as a snap
package.
"Today, Mozilla and Canonical are renewing their
partnership to make Firefox the default browser for Ubuntu users. We are
proud to have been a partner of choice for Ubuntu for over a decade,"
said Nick Nguyen, vice president of Firefox Product, Mozilla. "Canonical
and Mozilla share a similar heritage as open-source and
community-supported organizations."
What does this mean for the regular Ubuntu user?
Canonical always offered the latest version of the
Mozilla Firefox web browser on supported Ubuntu Linux operating systems
after only a couple of days from the upstream release; sometimes even on
the same day, but rarely. Having Firefox distributed in the snap format
means that you'll have 0-day releases in Ubuntu 16.04.
Yes, just like Windows and Mac OS X, users are
enjoying their 0-day releases of Mozilla Firefox and don't have to wait
for package maintainers of a particular GNU/Linux distribution to update
the software in the main repositories. For Mozilla, having Firefox as a
snap package means that they'll be able to continually optimize it for
Ubuntu.
"Like our rapid engineering release cycle, snap
format will allow us to provide Linux users the most up-to-date
features, in particular security patches, even after major Operating
System ship dates," said Nick Nguyen. "With the snap format, new
features can be released to users of older OS versions too."
When will Firefox be available as a snap format for Ubuntu?
According to Mozilla, it looks like the first ever
version of the Firefox browser to be offered as a snap package for
Ubuntu Linux will be available later this year. Of course, Mozilla will
still offer Firefox as 64-bit and 32-bit binaries, as well as a source
archive for users of other GNU/Linux operating systems.
The current version of the Mozilla Firefox web
browser available in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and other Linux
kernel-based operating systems is 45.0.2, and looking at the official
release schedule, the next major version, Firefox 46.0, will ship next
week, on Monday, April 26, 2016.
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