Why is Firefox owned by root?

[mint123]

On a default Mint install, Firefox is located in /opt but is owned by root. Is this a security issue? Firefox has root privledges to do whatever it likes. Chrome from Google's website installs into /opt but it's owned by the user who installs it. Should chown or chmod be used on Firefox to take it out of root ownership?

[xenopeek]

You are mixing up some things here

First, a program is not run as the user that owns it, but but as the user that runs it. Though there are ways to set a program to be run as the user that owns it, that is very, very, very, rarely done and not the case here. There is no security issue. I suggest you read up on understanding how Linux handles file permissions, for example here: https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/3 ... ermissions

Second, the few files that are in /opt/firefox are installed by the mint-stylish-addon and the mint-search-addon packages. These are add-ons to Firefox, not Firefox itself

How do I know? Using the "dpkg -S filename" you can search for packages that installed a file. To confirm, consult Synaptic and look at the list of files that both these packages installed, or just run the following to see that all the files in /opt/firefox are indeed installed from these two packages:

Code: Select all

dpkg -L mint-stylish-addon mint-search-addon | grep ^/opt

So yeah, you can also look up the firefox package to see which files are installed for Firefox. None of those are in /opt.

[mint123]

Thank you Vincent. I will give that a read. One thing but, I'm on Mint Debian and my Firefox is entirely in /opt. Even usr/bin/firefox is just a link to /opt. I have the mint stylish and mint search addons removed. I guess it's different in the Ladies of Mint?

[eanfrid]

There is no Firefox in a pure Debian, but there is Iceweasel, the debianized version of Firefox. Perhaps it is the reason why the real Firefox in LMDE is installed in /opt.

[xenopeek]

Ah, mint123 I guess then that you are using LMDE instead? There indeed the firefox package installs into /opt. Still, the bit about it being owned by root not being a security issues stands

Moved your post here.