As of the beta, Zorin 17 provides firefox as a flatpak. For performance and compatibility reasons, I can see that many of us (including myself) would prefer the native version. Sadly, because of a decision from Ubuntu, doing "sudo apt install firefox" brings the snap and not the native package. So after a bit research, trial and error with some different blogs and ubuntu forum posts, I have finally gotten the native firefox to install with apt instead of Ubuntu's snap. The steps are quite easy to follow:
1) Add Mozilla's ppa
Type in the terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
and then
sudo apt update
If the next steps are too complicated or you don't have the time to follow them, you can stop here if you are fine with the long-term-support version of firefox:
sudo apt install firefox-esr
Ubuntu hasn't made a snap of that one, so it will install with no problems
However, if you prefer the up-to-date version of firefox that you used back in Z16, you need to continue with the rest of the tutorial
2) Create a file that tells apt to give the ppa higher priority for firefox than ubuntu's repository
Create a new file on the desktop called "repository-priority"
Open it with the text editor and copy-paste this:
Package: firefox
Pin: release o=Ubuntu
Pin-Priority: 1
Package: firefox
Pin: release o=PPA Repository
Pin-Priority: 500
It basically just tells to get firefox from a ppa instead of Ubuntu's repository when it's available on both
Then, open a terminal and type:
sudo nautilus
(If the firefox flatpak stays after the stable release, replace "nautilus" with "nemo" if you are using Zorin Lite)
Then, go to
/etc/apt/preferences.d
and drag the "repository-priority" file from the desktop to that folder
Now apply the changes with:
sudo apt update
(OPTIONAL STEP): Check if everything worked fine by typing on the terminal "apt search firefox" (or searching firefox on the synaptic package manager) and make sure the description of the package doesn't say anything about being a transitional package for the snap. If it doesn't, it worked. It should say something like "Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla"
And now all that's left is to install it:
sudo apt install firefox
