Firefox 50.0

[Wildman]

Why isn't this version of Firefox showing up in available updates on Linux Mint 17.3? Also why does Firefox on Linux not allow Google to be the search?
Always,
Wildman

[Schultz]

On the link below, go to the bottom of the page and click on the Google icon.

https://www.linuxmint.com/searchengines.php

[bartszu]

Why isn't this version of Firefox showing up in available updates on Linux Mint 17.3?

No it is I have it, you need to continue with Update Manager.

Also why does Firefox on Linux not allow Google to be the search?

https://www.linuxmint.com/searchengines.php

Go to bottom of the page, click Google icon, then add Google Search.

https://www.linuxmint.com/searchengines ... Google&c=y
or visit this.

[karlchen]

Hi, Wildman.

Why isn't this version of Firefox showing up in available updates on Linux Mint 17.3?

Indeed at this point in time, the Linux Mint Repositories still hold Firefox 49.0.2 for Mint 17 and Mint 18. Only the maintainers of the Linux Mint Repositories will be able to explain why exactly Firefox 50.0 is not available, yet.
But I am pretty certain that the Linux Mint Update Manager will offer Firefox 50.0 to you within the next few days.

Best regards,
Karl

[Wildman]

None of this working for me. I have set Chromium as my default.
Always,
Wildman

[Wildman]

Thanks Karlchen (danke).

Always,
Wildman

[karlchen]

None of this working for me. I have set Chromium as my default.

You asked how to add Google as a search engine to Firefox. No-one pretended the linked instructions worked for Chromium as well.
Please, explain step by step what you do in Firefox in order to add Google to the list of search engines, and also explain where exactly you encounter a problem.

[bjmh46]

I am one of those who switched to the ubuntu version of firefox at version 49 (late sept 2016 as suggested by Karlchen). This was due to a problem with the 32 bit versions of linux Mint 17. Never switched back to the minty version, even after the problem was fixed. Well, I got the firefox 50 version a couple of days ago, and immediately had a problem viewing any kind of media content. Seems firefox 50 has blacklisted any version of libavcodec older than 54.35.1. I assume (maybe a bad assumption on my part) that there will soon be an update to libavcodec as well as the firefox 50 update--I'll be watching for it! Meanwhile my workaround is to modify the libavcodec "allow" setting in "about:config" and everything works fine again. I figure I'm no less safe than if I was still running 49.0.2 minty version. Hopefully the devs are aware of this problem and will release the appropriate updates.

None of the above is a recommendation--just providing the information! Have a great day!

Bob

[bartszu]

Well one smart guy from this forum once said:

"There no need to update"
"If its not broken, don’t fix it"

but ppl fail to listen )))

[rcentros]

I am one of those who switched to the ubuntu version of firefox at version 49 (late sept 2016 as suggested by Karlchen). This was due to a problem with the 32 bit versions of linux Mint 17. Never switched back to the minty version, even after the problem was fixed. Well, I got the firefox 50 version a couple of days ago, and immediately had a problem viewing any kind of media content. Seems firefox 50 has blacklisted any version of libavcodec older than 54.35.1. I assume (maybe a bad assumption on my part) that there will soon be an update to libavcodec as well as the firefox 50 update--I'll be watching for it! Meanwhile my workaround is to modify the libavcodec "allow" setting in "about:config" and everything works fine again. I figure I'm no less safe than if I was still running 49.0.2 minty version. Hopefully the devs are aware of this problem and will release the appropriate updates.

None of the above is a recommendation--just providing the information! Have a great day!

Thanks. I have the same issue with 32-bit Linux Mint Mate 17.1 -- but I never implemented the Karlchen fix, just waited until the Linux Mint developers released a new version of Firefox. So the Karlchen fix has nothing to do with this issue. I'll see if I can implement your "about:config" fix for this.

EDIT: That worked. Firefox is the only upgrade that makes me hold my breath whenever I upgrade it. It seems like there's always some issue.

[karlchen]

What was true yesterday

Indeed at this point in time, the Linux Mint Repositories still hold Firefox 49.0.2 for Mint 17 and Mint 18.

no longer applies today:
Today Firefox 50.0 can be spotted in the Linux Mint repositories for Mint 17.x and for Mint 18.x.
This solves the first of wildman's two issues.
--
About Firefox 50.0 and libavcodec:
As can be easily learnt from the Firefox 50.0 Release Notes:

Blocked versions of libavcodec older than 54.35.1

It can be easily guessed that the Firefox developers have not done so, because they like to annoy their users, but because libavcodec versions older than 54.35.1 will hold exploitable security vulnerabilities.
It is therefore a bit blue-eyed, to put it mildly, to re-enable older libavcodec versions, arguing using them on Firefox 50 will not be more unsafe than using them on Firefox 49.0.2. A few weeks ago, the Firefox developers may not have been aware of the danger. Therefore they had no reason to block it, now they know and they block it; deliberately re-enabling libavcodec older than 54.35.1 may not be a wise decision.
I will try to search a bit and find out why libavcodecs older than 54.35.1 are no longer trusted in detail.

[pleasureprimer]

That's odd. I just went ahead with this update to Firefox 5.0 on Linux Mint 17.3 and I am getting this error.

[Wildman]

Firefox 50.0 is now on my machine using Linux Mint 17.3. Will see about using Google as the search engine. No big issue other than out of all the search engines I like Google the best. If I can not get it on Firefox using Linux Mint 17.3 I am not going to shed tears.
Always,
Wildman

[karlchen]

Hm, having read this thread on gstreamer related problems/crashes on Firefox, I start wondering whether my assumption made in my previous post was not a bit too optimistic / too blue-eyed:

Maybe the Firefox developers do not really want to annoy their (Ubuntu) users; but it is quite imaginable that they block libavcodec < 54.35.1 exactly because Ubuntu has been deploying 54.35.0 for a long time now and because they want to force the Ubuntu developers to replace 54.35.0 by a more recent version, which is less buggy and which causes less problems on Firefox.

That Mozilla bug thread, by the way, was the only thread / article which I have been able to find this evening that gives a hint what might be the motivation to block libavcodec < 54.35.1.

If this is true, no newly detected vulnerability made the Firefox developers block libavcodec < 54.35.1, but the attempt of urging Ubuntu to deploy more recent libavcodec versions than they currently do. In this case temporarily permitting libavcodec 54.35.0 on Firefox 50.0 might not be soooo bad. After all Firefox 45.5.0 ESR does not complain about it either, although it implements all other security fixes which Firefox 50.0 brings along.

But who can judge really whether it is risky or not? After all we have only recently learnt that bugs in multimedia libaries can be exploited on Linux as well. Cf. here.

Life can be pretty tricky ....

[bjmh46]

rcentros:
I didn't mean to imply that the libavcodec error had anything to do with the "Karlchen fix" as you put it. It's just that those of us who used this fix , have been getting the firefox updates ~3-7 days sooner than the mint version comes out, so we saw the problem earlier.

Karlchen:
Regarding your security concerns--notice I qualified my post by telling everyone it was not a recommendation, just for info. I agree with your later post that this could be just a nudge to get the ubuntu developers to update libavcodec. My feeling is that everything we use is ultimately vulnerable--it's only a matter of time until someone discovers that vulnerability. That's why I always keep a very current backup in the form of a Clonezilla image. In my windows days, I used Norton Ghost and only once did I ever have to use my backup due to some nasty malware that got thru. Mostly, I use my backups to recover from self inflicted problems!

Regards
Bob

[Pierre]

this LM 17x did update to FF50 some days ago,
& the "libavcodec < 54.35.1." also appeared at the same time.
- but it doesn't seem to be on all web sites, though.

Karl - is this a fix for that error ?.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/851190/h ... untu-14-04
- the error seems to mainly occur on Linux systems, it seems.

[karlchen]

Hi, Pierre.

This might be the point really, Ubuntu does not offer a newer libavcodec than 54.35.0 at the moment.
By the way, the message

Code: Select all

libavcodec may be vulnerable or is not supported, and should be updated to play videos

might be a warning only. At least I have not come across a videoclip which could not be played, although I use FF50.0 and libavcodec 54.35.0 on Mint 17.x and Ubuntu 14.04.5.
(And no, I have not permitted obsolete libavcodec under about:config - media.libavcodec.allow-obsolete=false/true).

Cheers,
Karl

[bjmh46]

My experience is different from Karlchen's. Without permitting obsolete libavcodec:
1-.gif files on imgur.com will not show.
2-every video I've tried to play, asks for it's original codec whether that be quicktime, flash etc. (I normally keep flash disabled)
3-Youtube videos won't play (again flash disabled)

I guess that anything in webm, or html5, is not going to play unless I allow the obsolete codec. I've found that it's possible to upgrade vlc player and plugins, to version 2.2, via ppa. This comes with libavcodec 56. I'd rather not do this for now, I'll wait a bit to see if Ubuntu updates.

Bob

[andrew110]

Hi, Pierre.

This might be the point really, Ubuntu does not offer a newer libavcodec than 54.35.0 at the moment.
By the way, the message

Code: Select all

libavcodec may be vulnerable or is not supported, and should be updated to play videos

might be a warning only. At least I have not come across a videoclip which could not be played, although I use FF50.0 and libavcodec 54.35.0 on Mint 17.x and Ubuntu 14.04.5.
(And no, I have not permitted obsolete libavcodec under about:config - media.libavcodec.allow-obsolete=false/true).

Cheers,
Karl

sorry, one of my favorite ways to waste time is watching anime, and my favourite no longer works with Firefox due to this bug. site: http://kissanime.to/ error: click on link, opens with audio only, no video. not sure if it's the site or the new version of Firefox, but either way, yeah, there are videos that won't play.

[karlchen]

Hi, andrew110.
But I guess you have found the workaround which makes Firefox 50.0 use libavcodec older than 54.35.1 in my post?
Karl