Vince Coen  wrote:
> Hello All!
>
> Any one know if there is a way of getting an u to date
> version for the Pi ?

You can if you're running a Linux distro which is compatible with
recent Debian packages:
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/firefox-esr

(I think the "armel" build might be the one that suits the Pi).

There are tons of options for running different OSs on the Pi, and
no doubt there are others with later Firefox versions than V.52. Many
of those releases aren't as well tested or documented for the Pi as
they are for PCs though.

> Supplied one is v52.

Assuming that you've attempted to find more recent updates with
whatever mechanism is built into your OS (presumably Linux based),
and failed. I'm guessing that the OS has been following the ESR
releases and haven't been able to build the latest one that followed
V.52. The latest ESR versions use the new browser engine (Quantum)
which is supposably faster and less resource intensive (worth
considering when reading other comments about how Firefox perfroms
compared to Chromium on the Pi). This is programmed in a new language
called "Rust", and I might suppose that this is where an OS package
maintainer may run into new difficulties in getting it to compile.

As for an answer. If your running a Linux distro closely based on
a more mainstream one like Debian, which already has a package for
a newer Firefox, it _might_ be possible to simply install that (look
for any special notes about doing this with your distro, if it's not
how it does things by default).

Or you might be able to find a static binary of Firefox for ARM V.6
(I think all the Pis are ARM V.6, best check it yourself). This
should run on its own like an .EXE in Windows, as long as the Linux
kernel you're using is a similar version to the one it was compiled
for. These are only simetimes available though, and you might be even
less likely to find one for ARM. Also, it works best for much simpler
software, Firefox probably expects various files and directories to
be created for it during installation, and you'll have to to this
manually if using a static binary.

Then there's compiling from the source code yourself, but this will
probably be _very_ slow if you do it on the Pi because Firefox is
HUGE. Then there's the question: if you can do it without issues,
why couldn't the package maintainer? [EDIT: Also, it probably won't
work at all on the Pi because there isn't enough RAM (I needed over
1GB to compile the Chrome engine, Firefox is probably similar) - you
would need to set up a cross-compiling environment on a more powerful
PC, and prepare a package there (might as well upload it and become
the new maintainer :) )]

Finally, you could change the OS you're running. Perhaps there's a
later version of your Linux distro which you haven't upgraded to,
and that has newer versions of Firefox? Otherwise, I've already
pointed out that the many distros compatible with Debian pacakges
have a new Firefox version available. I know at least some have
releases for the Raspberry Pi. Then there are plenty of other ones
besides - search Distrowatch and find one that suits you, then put
it on another SD card and give it a go.

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