Why is Firefox owned by root?
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LMDE 2 has reached end of support as of 1-1-2019
LMDE 2 has reached end of support as of 1-1-2019
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mint123
Why is Firefox owned by root?
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?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Re: Why is Firefox owned by root?
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:
So yeah, you can also look up the firefox package to see which files are installed for Firefox. None of those are in /opt.
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
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mint123
Re: Why is Firefox owned by root?
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?
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eanfrid
Re: Why is Firefox owned by root?
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.
Re: Why is Firefox owned by root?
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.
Moved your post here.