Raspberry Pi Firefox

In this Raspberry Pi Firefox tutorial, we go through all the steps to getting the Firefox browser installed on the Pi.

Raspberry Pi Firefox

This tutorial is perfect if you’re a fan of the browser and absolutely need it on the Pi.

We make use of the default operating system for the Raspberry Pi, Raspbian. If you haven’t got Raspbian installed, then the installation process may differ to what is detailed in this tutorial.

In this tutorial, we make use of the extended support release (ESR) of Firefox. This version has a lot of the features that you know and love with the Firefox browser. It does lack a few things that the latest version has but is still great.

It is likely that the latest version of Firefox will come to the Raspberry Pi but at the time of this tutorial, it doesn’t currently work as intended.

Equipment List

All the pieces of equipment that were in use for this project are listed below.

Recommended

Optional

Firefox for the Raspberry Pi Features

There are many reasons why you may want to use Firefox over the other browsers for the Raspberry Pi. I will list below some of the highlights of what you will find with this browser.

Sync between devices

This feature is an extremely handy feature if you Firefox across all your devices. You can have all your details synced across your phone, tablet, Raspberry Pi and any other electronic devices that make use of a browser.

firefox sync

Focus on Privacy

If privacy is your thing, then you will be pleased to hear Firefox has some features to try and keep your browsing as it should be, private.

firefox privacy

Add-ons and Extensions

If you like having a good range of extensions, then Firefox is excellent. There are tons of add-ons you can install such as an adblocker, Grammarly, YouTube enhancer, Multi-Account containers and so much more.

Firefox extensions

Customizable

Much like the Vivaldi browser, Firefox too has an excellent range of options to help customize the browser best for you. This range includes cool themes that you can download from the Firefox addon library.

firefox themes

How to Install Firefox

This section is the most important part of this Raspberry Pi firefox tutorial. The process of installing Firefox is incredibly easy and can be done in just a few short steps.

1. First, make sure that Raspbian is completely up to date. You can do this by running the following two commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Now that’s done, install Firefox ESR using the following command.

sudo apt-get install firefox-esr

3. Once that has finished running, you should now have Firefox installed. To find the browser simply go to the Menu->Internet->Firefox ESR.

raspbian firefox menu location

That’s all you need to do, and the browser will work on most websites with a few exceptions. It’s pretty much perfect if you’re looking for a replacement over the native Chromium browser on the Pi.

Firefox First Start

There are many other browsers that you can install for the Raspberry Pi. If you’re only just starting out with the Raspberry Pi, then I recommend that you stick with the inbuilt chromium browser and later.

I hope that this Raspberry Pi Firefox guide has been able to show you all the steps to getting Firefox installed and working on the Raspberry Pi. If you run into issues, require help, then please don’t hesitate to comment below.

7 Comments

  1. Avatar for Tom Z
    Tom Z on

    Easy to do and worked great on my Raspberry Pi 4 with Raspbian, thanks for posting the information!

  2. Avatar for Erza
    Erza on

    I get the Error : “E: Unable to locate firefox-esr” when i run apt-get instal firefox-esr

    1. Avatar for Emmet
      Emmet on
      Editor

      Hi Erza,

      It is installing fine for us.

      Make sure that you run the following command before trying to install firefox.

      sudo apt update

      Cheers,
      Emmet

    2. Avatar for john
      john on

      Hi Ezra.

      install has t l’s I notice from your question that you only have one l in install.

  3. Avatar for Teresa
    Teresa on

    I can’t get the command “sudo apt-get install firefox-esr” to work. I’ve added my account and deleted pi. Could that be the reason?

    1. Avatar for Gus
      Gus on
      Editor

      It should still work, what’s the error you’re getting?

  4. Avatar for Alex
    Alex on

    Thanks for this, so simple!

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