Installing a browser in the big 2025
(midwest.social)
tsugu to 
linuxmemes
Linux users don't need to install a browser though. 😏
LibreWolf is my response.
You make it Seen complicated, which its not.
Why would anyone install a proprietary freeware browser?
It's a very usable browser and vivaldi explicitly do no AI, unlike firefox. I get that firefox is the only serious cross platform competitor to chromium, but mozilla really does consistently shoot itself in the foot. it's like they're masochistic.
edit: vivaldi also actually seems to have a vision and design goals, which firefox sort of lacks.
How did moz shoot themselves in the foot? I am genuinely asking as I missed any controversy.
Firefox has been slowly ramping up AI integration and data collection/telemetry. Fortunately theres many forks that rip all that out. Librewolf and ironfox are good examples.
The truth is Mozilla is not profitable as a company and FF would have died a long time ago if Google didn't pay up to keep them alive to help avoid monopoly busting suits. In a worse timeline we don't even have modern FF to fork from or ublock in 2025.
because it's what the normals like
Windows five minutes after installing a web browser: "Welcome to Edge! We've imported your tabs from Chrome for you."
sudo pacman -Syu librewolf-bin
paru -S floorp-bin
error: target not found: librewolf-bin
It's in the AUR.
And this is why using a GUI is superior for most people.
I upvoted, but not always. With the CLI you know exactly if you installing from core/extra (which you don't usually need to check PKGBUILD) and executing as privileged, compared to AUR which you either install manually or use an AUR package manager like YAY which strongly discourages running as priviliged, and offers checking PKGBUILD on both install and update.
For example, Pamac doesn't show this - or at least didn't back when I used it on Manjaro.
Counterpoint: As an above average Windows user (I know enough to have built computers, so at least a little more than the normal Windows/Mac user), after reading your comment I raised both my arms over my head to make sure I wasn't having a stroke.
Obviously, I've never used Linux and so don't know the basics of the internals (and I was never one to mess with the CMD line), but I'd be willing to bet money that 75% of Windows users would look at you like you're possessed if you said that to them, and that's why a GUI is so important for the average user. Easily 50% of users don't even know that "run as administrator" exists or what it does.
Building a pc has no bearing on what a programm does or how some software works. With win11 as a tech savy person i alwas struggle to find where to do things that i knew in the old gui. Windows isnt better because of gui. Its just that people always used it and know where stuff is. The next generation of kids that grew up on phones will not know how to do things in windows. Learning a console command is not more difficult than knowing a gui. The only hard part is knowing what program is used for what purpose, if you have no idea that pacman is your package manager you cant write pacman -h for the help text but the same is true with guis, if you dont know the icon for your purpose you cant run it. The biggest problem i see with people is that they just dont want to read something. I have people who were developing apps for/on windows before and if they get a error in the linux console they dont read it at all and just put sudo in front of it or ask chatgpt.
I brought up PC building because it gave me a better understanding of how a PC works and I know how to troubleshoot in large part thanks to it, which puts me in the 50% of users who could be considered "above average."
I think for the average to below average user, learning console commands is much more intimidating than learning a GUI. Hell, I'd even bump that up to a majority of users who are scared off by the concept. Programming is often seen as a form of magic by those who don't know how to program. I agree that Windows isn't better because of its GUI (especially with how it's gotten more obtuse with each new version) and that most people are just used to it, but I think a GUI is also inherently easier for more people to learn. Learning commands is more akin to learning a new language (new words with different meanings that probably require a certain mindset in order to comprehend as a whole - learning a new skill) while a GUI should (keyword there, one Microsoft has forgotten) be fairly intuitive to navigate with a consistent design language and interface. I use Blender, and while the vast majority of useful tools are accessible via shortcut keys as well as the UI, people need to keep an image of a keyboard with all the shortcuts mapped out because, my God, it's a lot to remember.
Basically, I agree that a GUI isn't fundamentally better than a console, but the original post was from the perspective of the average user, and I think that a GUI is more accessible for the average user than a console. I think a well designed GUI is why Windows took off in the way that it did and why Apple has the staying power that it does. It's important to remember that 50% of users are considered above average, but that means that the other 50% are below average.
Personally, I'm prepping a fairly major upgrade for my computer that includes a new SSD that I'm going to dual boot Bazzite on instead of switching to Windows 11 (at least until I can migrate everything to Bazzite, then I intend to kick Microsoft to the wayside), and apart from the increasing compatibility of games with Linux and Valve's work in that area, I attribute even considering Linux to things like the immutable distros and flatpak. I know how to tinker, but I don't want to have to do that with my daily driver. I get enough of that from my 3d printer!
I get what you mean but i still think that there isnt a difference. All the "intuitive" stuff on guis is just stuff you learn as you would learn a cli program. The discette for saving isnt intuitive most people have never held one in their hands. Media player keys? Well you dont just know that double vertical bars will pause and triangle will play. People find gui more intuitive because they already spent a lot of time learning it. Once you learn "cli" you will have the same experience when doing something new.
Typing a word into the consome is far from programming. Missclicking on a gui is far easyer than typing a whole other word than you wanted to use.
Sounds more like a computer education deficiency problem. I actually think that regardless of which OS a person uses, learning the difference between source code and executables, and getting some practice building software from source is something that should be incorporated into elementary school.
Basic commandline skills too. And I'm not even good at doing things in a terminal.
Sounds more like a computer education deficiency problem.
One hundred and ten percent right. But it's not something that's going to go away any time soon, and the older generations will never get over as a whole, so it's something that we just have to account for when talking about the average user. The average American reads at, what, a 7th grade reading level? And 50% of people are below average.
flatpak install flathub io.gitlab.librewolf-community
I don't get it. What's this supposed to tell me?
it's a parody of the memes where it's typing commands for 20 minutes to install a web browser
Windows users setting up a local account
I mean you can still get that experience on Ubuntu if you want to install Firefox as an apt package instead of being forced to install it as a snap package.
"forced to do what now" - mint users
Both are official and work well so there isn't really a need for it. But some people just want to make their experience harder because snap bad.
No, the Firefox snap genuinely is awful. It takes forever to load and runs like ass.
idk what to tell you, I used it on an old Hp laptop from 2008 with an HDD. Ran just fine. Maybe try it again in 2025
I understand that. I actually used the snap one for a long time but then was having issues with it crashing a lot and switched over. I doubt most have the same issues I was having.
I was just pointing out that if you want to make it difficult for yourself, you can haha.
Too many screens and clicks. Where's my single-click browser install? Linux will never become mainstream on the desktop.
no, it should just know what browser I want. it should read my minds or whatever. do you expect me to take those 5 whole clicks?
Agreed. I stand corrected. Fuck those clicks.
I want just rawr
That's mostly the browser, isn't it? I'm old and cant follow this but it looks like the install is one click and then its theme choosing and other first-startup stuff in the browser?
Might be. It's a deeply sarcastic comment. 😊
There’s just the one
flatpak install flathub net.waterfox.waterfox
apt get install lynx -y
brew install --cask waterfox
winget install firefox
flatpak install flathub io.gitlab.librewolf-community
Use gnome-software and install flatpaks or official apt packages instead of the snap store
No thanks, I like snaps
I don't like them, but I'd like to remind my fellow Canonical-Haters to not become User-Haters instead. It's okay to have preferences, but let's not antagonise each other.
That said, flatpak > compiling from source > writing from scratch > writing with binary editor > not having it at all > snap
That is pretty funny. However the "not having it at all" mfs suddenly reconsider when it's the only way to install an app. I for example maintain the 4K Video Downloader Plus snap and the only other installation method is a .deb. In the stats I can see many other distros than just Ubuntu. I think it's the ideal packaging format for apps that should stay up to date at all time, even if the system isn't.
However the "not having it at all" mfs suddenly reconsider when it's the only way to install an app.
I mean, if you want the app badly enough, I guess "not having it" slips down in the ranking. I have yet to find a single app I wanted enough to put snap on my system though. So far, I've found Flatpaks, AppImage, RPM packages or source code for everything I need.
Look, I don't wanna argue about the advantages or disadvantages of it. My beef isn't with snap as a technology, but with Canonical's practices, and rather than railing against them, I decided to skip town and find some distro where I'm not fighting my vendor.
I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I love your snap hate 🤣
Honestly, most of my hate is with the sn-apt switchup where using apt would install snaps instead of the debs I naively assumed I'd get. I don't wanna argue about the format or the utility of a single centrally maintained package store. I also still think Ubuntu is a good entry point for Linux newbies.
I hate that apt installs something other than debs so much. That's super annoying. And I agree, I don't really care but don't change expectations, if ubuntu thinks snap is better, then transition to snap with its own toolset, don't bastardize the current toolset.
Genuine question; what is it about them that appeals to you? I used them for a while as a few things on kubuntu defaulted to snap but after a while I kept running into different issues that don't occur on the flathub/deb counterparts so I've cut them out for the most part.
I like Ubuntu and related technologies around it so when I wanted to learn Linux packaging I went for snap. It turned out to be not as hard as I thought, and from my experience they run just fine. And are capable of packaging more types of apps than flatpak.
Image isn't loading for me. I get:
Request error: error sending request for url (http://pictrs:8080/image/process.webp?src=0364be98-3ccc-4357-9b10-21eeb3f15e30.webp): operation timed out
https://gregtech.eu/pictrs/image/0364be98-3ccc-4357-9b10-21eeb3f15e30.webp
https://worldwideweb.cern.ch/browser/
I do have comments, I guess I'll contact Tim Berners-Lee.
Technically, you're still downloading it, even if your package manager does it for you. And, tbh, even on Debian stable it needs some user action (including a visit to Mozilla's site) to get an actual version of Firefox and rolling upgrades installed instead of the LTS version.
My OS came with an officially packed (by Mozilla) non LTS version of Firefox that gets regular version upgrades.
F this
I would rather use edge to install chrome
Ubuntu unity was so good :(
